Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
1 place in town is on the National Register, among them a historic district with 3 buildings. Below: 2 old photos and papers from 1890 on.
The Oakley Township post office opened in 1885, the earliest record of the town by name.
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 Oakley Township’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Oakley Township.
The area that would later become Oakley was settled in the 1870s and 1880s by travelers from the Smoky Hill Trail. Oakley was founded in 1884 by Judge Fredman and David D. Hoag. Originally named Carlyle, its name was changed to Cleveland, before settling on its final name of Oakley in 1885, named after Hoag's mother, Elizabeth Oakley Gardner Hoag.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
2 decades in the archive, from the 1890s to the 1980s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
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 Oakley 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 Oakley Township post office opened in 1885, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
One place: the Lake of the Forest Historic District (listed 1996).
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 (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia 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.
1890
1980
2011
2006
2004