Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: 1 old photo or paper.
The Salt Lick post office opened in 1888, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Vail (1882), opened inside today’s city 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 Salt Lick’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Salt Lick.
The community at the present site of Salt Lick was originally named Vail when the first post office was established in 1882. The town was laid out and renamed in 1884; the post office followed suit four years later after the city was formally incorporated.
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.
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 Salt Lick’s page.
Retake this view · +15Nobody well known was born in Salt Lick itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Salt Lick’s post office has been open since 1888. Another post office, Vail, 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).
The Salt Lick post office opened in 1888, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia, 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.
Date?
2004
