Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: maps from 1943 on and the census since 1960.
Royal dates its founding to 1882 (Wikidata). The census first counted it in 1960.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Royal’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Royal.
Royal, Illinois is a small village that in part consists of grain elevators at the intersection of a railroad and County Road 20.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Royal, cut from the printed page as they were published.
There is a Royal Family of France, reader, a Royal Family as old as the Gaelic soil, as ancient as the forests of Germany, as truly of the Royal Blood of France as Her Majesty Queen Victoria I. descends from Egbert. It took root in France, and France, to repay her debt, embodied herself in her Royal Family.
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyWeddings 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 Royal. 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 Royal.
Between 171 and 293 people in every census since 1960.
7 censuses, 1960–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Royal’s Wikipedia page.
In 1882, according to Wikidata. Royal’s post office opened in 1886, and the census of 1960 counted 171 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 Wikipedia, 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 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.
