Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Most of Bigger Township was built recently: 7% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1995. Its Register listings are the Benville Bridge and the Hicklin House and Settlement. Below: maps from 1959 on and the census since 1890.
The Bigger Township post office opened in 1892, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, San Jacinto (1852), Benville (1858) and Bigger (1892), 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 Bigger Township’s history is told.
Three other post offices 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).
From Wikipedia’s history of Bigger Township.
Bigger Township was created in 1840 from Vernon Township, and named for Samuel Bigger, seventh Governor of Indiana.
Benville Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Bigger Township.
1959San Jacinto sheet · 1:24,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Bigger Township.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Between 498 and 996 people in every census since 1890.
14 censuses, 1890–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Bigger Township’s Wikipedia page.
Nobody well known was born in Bigger Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Bigger Township post office opened in 1892, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Two places: the Benville Bridge (listed 1996) and the Hicklin House and Settlement (2023).
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 the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, 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.
