Founding year: the first Roanoke post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Roanoke’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Roanoke is more historic than 49% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
B−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Roanoke’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 Roanoke’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 B. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±7.5 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 Roanoke’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
Until about 1850, much of northern Illinois was still frontier land and sparsely populated, which the exception of Chicago and towns along the rivers. This changed in 1850, when President Millard Fillmore signed a land grant for the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad, lobbied for by then-lawyers Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. With the railroad expanding into Central Illinois, new opportunities for settlement by German, Dutch, Irish, Italian, Swedish, and other European immigrants opened up in Woodford County.
and in 1872 the Chicago, Pekin and Southwestern was built thru the town. The citizens of the vicnity contributed $5,000 toward building the road on condition that a, swich would be put in at Roanoke. The same year that the railroad was built the town was laid out by D. T. Fauber, Ben G. Kindig and Hiram Barney. The plat was signed December 17, 1872.
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David T. Fauber, who became one of the founders of the village, came to Roanoke township in 1855 He purchased a farm on which a portion of Roanoke is now located. The land was purchased for $15 per acre, and is now part of the most valuable property in town. The residence formed for many years a landmark in the village, ])eing located on Broad street. It was built in 1851 by William Front, and remained there until a few years ago,when it was removed from
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The Past and present of Woodford County, Illinois1878 · page 341Read the page →
Read the text
Roanoke is geometrically the center township of the county. It is bounded on the north by Linn, on the east by Greene, on the south by Olio and on the west by Metamora, and is known as Congressional Town '11 N., Range 1 W.
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election was contested, yet he took but little interest in the contest. Even public life had lost its zest. He afterwards declared that Washington City was as lonely a solitude to him as the shades of Roanoke. The one great subject was still uppermost in his mind. But no peace followed. The miracle he spoke of had not yet been wrought. The light was still absent from his soul. He returned to Roanoke
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Roanoke, 1858 to 1955
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Roanoke post office opened in 1858, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Roanoke rank for history?
Roanoke is more historic than 49% 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 Roanoke?
30% of Roanoke’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.5 points), against a typical 11% for an Illinois town; the median home was built in 1958.
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 (2), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
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