Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: old-book passages.
The Weldon post office opened in 1874, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Nixon (1867), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
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 Weldon’s history is told.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Weldon yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Weldon is a village in Nixon Township, DeWitt County, Illinois, United States. The population was 369 at the 2020 census.
Its first post office opened in 1874. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 429 to 369 (-14%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Weldon, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Mr. Lisenbey acquired considerable property, owning onefourth of the entire town of Weldon, which place he took an active part in laying out and first settling; and his farm lands in the immediate neighborhood consisted in the aggregate of over one thousand acres.
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.
Nobody well known was born in Weldon itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Weldon’s post office has been open since 1874. Another post office, Nixon, opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The Weldon post office opened in 1874, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 Wikimedia Commons (3), 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.
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