Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: maps from 1985 on and the census since 1840.
The Chester post office opened in 1854, the earliest record of the town by name.
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 Chester’s history is told.
Lost a third of its people between 1890 and 1930, then more than doubled.
19 censuses, 1840–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Chester’s Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Chester yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Chester is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 549 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Bangor Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Its first post office opened in 1854. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 546 in 2010, 549 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Chester, cut from the printed page as they were published.
On February 26, 1834, an act of incorporation of Chester was passed by the Legislature at the time of the Governorship of Robert P. Dunlap, and on March 29, 1834, the inhabitants of Township i, Range 8 met at the house of Jeremiah Hildreth, nearly midway of the town, on the warrant of Gideon J. Newton, Justice of the Peace of Chester, directed to David Haynes, the father of Alvin, of Winn, afterwards prominent in county
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
In the sparsely settled upper Penobscot, for election purposes, a quite large territory was embraced in one voting precinct, and as late as 1853 the voters of Winn, Mattawamkeag, Woodville, and Nicatou, (Chester, being incorporated in 1834,) met for election purposes near the end of Mattawamkeag bridge. In 1853 Five Islands Plantation was incorporated, which reduced the number of voters litre. Winn was incorporated in 1857,
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
In the sparsely settled upper Penobscot, for election purposes, a quite large territory was embraced in one voting precinct, and as late as 1853 the voters of Winn, Mattawamkeag, Woodville, and Nicatou, (Chester, being incorporated in 1834,) met for election purposes near the end of Mattawamkeag bridge. In 1853 Five Islands Plantation was incorporated, which reduced the number of voters here. Winn was incorporated in 1857,
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.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Chester.
1985Lincoln sheet · 1:100,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Chester.
Chester had its own post office from 1854 to 1881.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Chester post office opened in 1854, 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 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 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.