Founding year: the first Loami Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
History grade
What drives Loami Township’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Loami Township is more historic than 33% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Loami 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 Loami Township’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (28% of Illinois towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C− to C+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.3 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 Loami Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Loami Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Loami is a village in Sangamon County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Loami had a population of 812. It is part of the Springfield, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is adjacent to the Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary, a parcel of tallgrass prairie replanted on the loam soil after which the village is named. The village was incorporated July 29, 1875.
Its first post office opened in 1855. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 1,070 to 1,109 (+4%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Loami Township in 1912
Passages that mention Loami Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Sangamon County1912 · page 1101Read the page →
Read the text
daughter of Thomas and Lydia (Workman) Large, natives of Tennessee and Illinois. In 1891, Mr. Campbell returned to Illinois, renting land in Loami Township until 1893, when he bought fifty and one half acres in Loami Township, paying $60 per acre. In 1905 he sold thirty and one-half acres of that farm for $110, per acre, and twenty acres at $90 per acre.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Sangamon County1912 · page 1739Read the page →
Read the text
Loami Township, Sangamon County, since 1880, when the grandfather of Alfred C. Workman brought his family to that location from Tennessee, making the trip overland. Four generations have lived in the neighborhood of this early settlement and the present homestead, occupied by the subject of this sketch, has been the family home since 1850, when a small frame
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
No old photos in the archives yet
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Loami Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1924Waverly 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 Loami Township.
People over time
Loami Township, census by census
Grew from 306 people in 1880 to 812 in 2020.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Loami Township’s Wikipedia page.
Places that used to be
Places now gone and burying grounds
Gone or out of use
Highwater Mark SchoolschoolHong Kong SchoolschoolMaple Grove SchoolschoolProsperity SchoolschoolSouth Fork Schoolschool
2cemeteries and burying grounds inside Loami Township
CampbellSulphur Springs
Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Loami Township post office opened in 1855, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Loami Township rank for history?
Loami Township is more historic than 33% of U.S. towns. 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.
How old are the homes in Loami Township?
13% of Loami Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.3 points), against a typical 11% for an Illinois town; the median home was built in 1976.
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 U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
