Founding year: the first Salina post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Salina’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Salina is more historic than 57% of U.S. towns, #69 of 151 in Kansas. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Salina’s overall grade.
Kansas towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Kansas town has 5.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Salina’s 4.3 sits near the middle of its state (44% of Kansas towns have fewer) while its 20 historic buildings outnumber those of 79% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C+ to B+. The pre-1940 share (±2.4 points) is firm at this size. The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
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 →
What stands out about Salina’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Shortly prior to European colonization of the area in the early 1700s, the site that would become Salina was located within the western territory of the Kansa people. Claimed first by France as part of Louisiana and later acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, it was within the area organized by the U.S. as Kansas Territory in 1854. The French traders who mapped the forks of les Grande Riviere des Cansez, located the western village of les Cansez at the general confluence of the Smoky Hill, Saline, and Solomon Rivers with villages of the Paducas tribe just to the west on heads of those streams.
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.
Cedar Creek Mobile Home ParkDel - Ray Mobile EstatesGolden Spur Mobile Home ParkPatio Mobile Home ManorPhillips VillagePrairie Village Mobile Home ParkSouthwestern Mobile Home Park
Gone or out of use
Dunbar SchoolschoolMarymount College of KansasschoolSalina AirportairportSmoky Hill Army Air Fieldmilitary
3cemeteries and burying grounds inside Salina
Gypsum HillMount CalvaryRoselawn Memorial Park
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Salina post office opened in 1861, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Salina rank for history?
Salina is more historic than 57% of U.S. towns, #69 of 151 in Kansas. 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.
What is on the National Register in Salina?
16 listings: 15 buildings, among them the A. J. Schwartz House (listed 1973, the first), and 1 structure. 20 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Salina?
17% of Salina’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±2.4 points), against a typical 10% for a Kansas town; the median home was built in 1965.
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 Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (16), 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.
1910s
1910s
