Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1938 on, and the census since 1880.
Genoa Township dates its founding to 1836 (Wikipedia’s history). The census first counted it in 1880.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveHABS ILL,19-GENO.V,1- (sheet 0 of 2) - Perkins Farmhouse, Route 22
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveCloverleaf Tap -- Genoa, Ill., On Route 72 -- 25 Miles West of Elgin (NBY 428918)From Wikipedia’s history of Genoa Township.
Genoa was settled in 1836 by Thomas Madison, an American Revolutionary War soldier from Ashtabula County, Ohio. He named Genoa after a town of the same name in New York. Genoa was incorporated as a village in 1876 and as a city on September 9, 1911.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
2 decades in the archive, from the 1930s to the 1940s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Genoa Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Genoa Township.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Genoa Township’s page.
Retake this view · +15Grew from 449 people in 1880 to 5,298 in 2020, more than tenfold.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Genoa Township’s Wikipedia page.
Nobody well known was born in Genoa Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Genoa Township’s history is told.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
In 1836, according to Wikipedia’s history of the town. Genoa Township’s post office opened in 1837, and the census of 1880 counted 449 people here.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (4), the Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1933
1933
Date?
