Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 71% of U.S. towns · #287 of 593 in Indiana. What drives it
Its Register listings are the Pinhook Methodist Church and Cemetery and the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Carmel Chapel and Carmel Cemetery. Below: maps from 1961 on.
The New Durham Township post office opened in 1842, the earliest record of the town by name. Four smaller post offices, Holmesville (1854), Otis (1872) and Packard (1872), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
More historic than 71% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, New Durham Township is more historic than 71% of U.S. towns, #287 of 593 in Indiana. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
Indiana towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Indiana town has 7.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so New Durham Township’s 6.2 sits near the middle of its state (57% of Indiana towns have fewer) while its 5 historic buildings outnumber those of 70% of U.S. towns.
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 →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Four 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).
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how New Durham Township’s history is told.
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 SurveyFrom Wikipedia’s history of New Durham Township.
An early settler being a native of Durham, New York, caused the name to be selected.
The Pinhook Methodist Church and Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Weddings 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 New Durham Township.
1961La Porte West 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 New Durham 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.
Nobody well known was born in New Durham Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The New Durham Township post office opened in 1842, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
New Durham Township is more historic than 71% of U.S. towns, #287 of 593 in Indiana. 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.
3 listings: 2 buildings, among them the Pinhook Methodist Church and Cemetery (listed 2009, the first). 5 historic buildings in all.
10% of New Durham Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.3 points), against a typical 14% for an Indiana town; the median home was built in 1993.
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).
From Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
