Founding year: the first Four Corners post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Four Corners’ History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Four Corners is more historic than 52% of U.S. towns, #81 of 261 in Maryland. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Four Corners’ overall grade.
Few Maryland towns list much on the Register (a typical Maryland town has 0.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Four Corners’ 7.4 sits above most of its state (66% of Maryland towns have fewer) while its 6 historic buildings outnumber those of 72% 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 (±2.7 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 Four Corners’ past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
In the 1700s, a water mill was built at the easternmost corner of Four Corners, where today's Colesville Road passes over the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River and becomes Columbia Pike. The mill building burned down in 1788, hence the name Burnt Mills. Rebuilt in the late 1700s or early 1800s, ownership of the mill changed hands several times in the 19th century before closing down in the early years of the 20th century. The land was then donated to the Boy Scouts of America, who established a camp named for President Woodrow Wilson. In the early 1920s, the Boy Scouts donated part of the land to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, and a temporary water filtration plant was erected at the site. Work on a new plant was completed in 1936, and the plant was named for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission's chief engineer, Robert B. Morse Filtration Plant. The dam and t…
The Four Corners post office opened in 1866, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Four Corners rank for history?
Four Corners is more historic than 52% of U.S. towns, #81 of 261 in Maryland. 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 Four Corners?
One place: the Polychrome Historic District (listed 1996).
How old are the homes in Four Corners?
10% of Four Corners’ homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±2.7 points), against a typical 3.3% for a Maryland town; the median home was built in 1953.
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 (10), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
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