Peabody dates to 1870, and 47% of its homes were built before 1940
6 places in town are on the National Register, among them a historic district with 42 buildings. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1884 on, and the census since 1880.
In 1864, the first settler in the Peabody area was W.C. Coble, from North Carolina, who set up ranch headquarters about 2+ miles east of the current city of Peabody (now section 36 of Catlin Township). The first settlement made in the area was in September 1870, by a colony of settlers from Wisconsin. In October, more settlers arrived. During the first month, the colony officers laid out a town on the north-half of section 4 township 22 and surveyed it into lots. The town was named Coneburg after the town company president John Cone. The town site was located between the current 9th Street and Division Avenue. During the winter of 1870, some of the settlers returned east to get supplies and bring out their families. In 1871, while the other settlers were gone, dissatisfaction arose in the community and it began to break up. Claim jumping of the Coneburg town site and nearby land started…
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
Peaked at 2,455 in 1920; 937 people lived here in 2020.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Peabody’s Wikipedia page.
Places that used to be
Lost post offices
Peabody’s post office has been open since 1871. Another post office, Coneburgh, opened and closed inside today’s town.
Coneburgh
1871–1871
Peabody
1871–today
18701950today
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Peabody’s history
What year was Peabody founded?
In 1870, according to Wikidata. Peabody’s post office opened in 1871, and the census of 1880 counted 1,087 people here.
What is on the National Register in Peabody?
6 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Old Peabody Library (listed 1973, the first), 1 historic district, the Peabody Downtown Historic District, with 42 contributing buildings, and 1 site. 47 historic buildings in all.
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), Wikidata (5), the National Register of Historic Places (6), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
