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History · Menominee

Menominee’s post office opened in 1885, and 20% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1955 on and the census since 1940.

1885first post office
0on the National Register
20%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Menominee began

When was Menominee founded?

1885

The Menominee post office opened in 1885, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 138 in 19402020 census: 211141 years
Founding year: the first Menominee post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Menominee’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Menominee are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Menominee’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Menominee’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story so far

Menominee, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Menominee yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Menominee is a village in Jo Daviess County, Illinois, United States. The population was 211 at the 2020 census. The village is located on the Little Menominee River near East Dubuque and Galena. The village derives its name from the Menominee indigenous peoples.

Its first post office opened in 1885. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 248 to 211 (-15%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

Timeline

Menominee, 1885 to 1955

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1885Post officeThe Menominee post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1912Post officeThe Menominee post office closes
  5. 1955On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Menominee, decade by decade

Today1 recent
ILMap-doton-Menominee2005ILMap-doton-Menominee
On the map

Menominee on the map, 1955 to 1972

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Menominee. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Menominee on the 1955 USGS mapMenominee on the 1972 USGS map1955Menominee sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Menominee.

People over time

Menominee, census by census

010020019401960198020002020Peak: 248

Between 132 and 248 people in every census since 1940.

9 censuses, 1940–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Menominee’s Wikipedia page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Menominee had its own post office from 1885 to 1912.

Menominee
1885–1912
18801950today

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Menominee’s history

What year was Menominee founded?

The Menominee post office opened in 1885, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

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 (1), 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.