Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listing is the Alexander & Anna Schwartz Farm. Below: 1 old photo or paper and maps from 1974 on.
The Alamota Township post office opened in 1877, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Alamota (1877) and Petersburgh (1884), 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 Alamota Township’s history is told.
Two 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 Alamota Township.
Alamota was a station and shipping point on a division of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.
A post office was established in Alamota in 1877, closed in 1894, reopened in 1903, and closed permanently in 1992.
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.
In the archiveAlamota, Kansas (circa 1890-1919)
BuiltAlexander & Anna Schwartz Farm is built
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1890s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Alamota Township. 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 Alamota Township.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Alamota Township’s page.
Retake this view · +15The 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.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Alamota Township post office opened in 1877, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
One place: the Alexander & Anna Schwartz Farm (listed 2014).
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 (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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.
