Founding year: the first Lewistown Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Lewistown Township’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Lewistown Township is more historic than 88% of U.S. towns, #99 of 768 in Illinois. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
A
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Lewistown Township’s overall grade.
Few Illinois towns list much on the Register (a typical Illinois town has 0.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Lewistown Township’s 7.7 sits above most of its state (80% of Illinois towns have fewer) while its 2 listings outnumber those of 60% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from A− to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±7.9 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Lewistown Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The city was named for Lewis Winans Ross, the son of its first settler, Ossian M. Ross. Originally named Fulton Courthouse with the establishment of its post office in 1824, it was renamed to Lewistown on March 14, 1831. It contains a tempera on canvas mural titled Lewistown Milestones, painted by Ida Abelman in 1941, depicting the Lincoln–Douglas debates. Murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Lewistown Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1925Havana sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Lewistown Township.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewFulton County courthouse in 1823, 1879
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Lewistown Township’s page.
The Lewistown Township post office opened in 1831, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Lewistown Township rank for history?
Lewistown Township is more historic than 88% of U.S. towns, #99 of 768 in Illinois. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Lewistown Township?
2 listings: 1 building, among them the St. James Episcopal Church (listed 1974, the first).
How old are the homes in Lewistown Township?
27% of Lewistown Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.9 points), against a typical 11% for an Illinois town; the median home was built in 1963.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (6), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia) 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.
1922
2014
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