Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listings are the Weaver Hotel and the Waterville Opera House. Below: old-book passages.
The Waterville post office opened in 1868, the earliest record of the town by name.
Waterville was named after Waterville, Maine, the hometown of a railroad official.
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 Waterville’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Waterville.
Waterville was founded in 1868 by the railroad company. It was named after Waterville, Maine, the hometown of a railroad official.
The first post office in Waterville was established in February 1868. Waterville was incorporated as a village in 1870 and as a city the following year.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Waterville, cut from the printed page as they were published.
on which the city of \\'aterville is located. The purchase was made on August 29, 1867. This accomplished, 'Sir. Gunn started from tr\ing and located the railroad to this point and laid out and platted the town of Waterville in February, 1868. 3.[r. R. Osborne, superintendent of the railroad, named this tow^n Water\ille after his home town in ]\Iaine. Air. Osborne had pre\-ious]}- purchased the land from G. H. Hollenberg and recorded the deed on March 4. 1868. The town was incorporated as a villag;e on July 30. 1870, with
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Services were held by Methodists of Waterville as early as 1868, when the depot was used as a meeting house. In the winter of 1868 Rev. M. D. Tenney organized a church with nine members, among whom were J. D. Farwell, W. J. Johnson, M. T. Bennett, J. \\^ Pierce, and their wives. For the first years meetings were held in the depot grain house, railroad coaches and school house. In the summer of 1 87 1 a church edifice thirty-six by seventy feet was erected at a cost of six thousand dollars. Rev. M. Spencer was the pastor until 1873, when he
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
The Waterville post office opened in 1868, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Two places: the Weaver Hotel (listed 1975) and the Waterville Opera House (2008).
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 (2), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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