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History · Gaastra

Gaastra’s post office opened in 1914, and 42% of its homes were built before 1940

1914first post office
0on the National Register
42%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Gaastra began

When was Gaastra founded?

1914

The Gaastra post office opened in 1914, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 316112 years
Founding year: the first Gaastra post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Gaastra’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Gaastra are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Gaastra’s homes were built before 1951.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Gaastra’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Gaastra’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Gaastra came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Gaastra.

Read it all →

The land was first purchased in 1879 by Alfred Kidder of Marquette. It was then transferred to several other owners, including Andrew Young in 1884 and Edwin H. Piper in 1902. The city is named after Douwe Gaastra, a building contractor and real estate speculator who bought the land in October 1908 and platted the town. A post office was established with the first postmaster being Olaf A. Olson on September 26, 1914. It was incorporated as a village in 1919 and as a city in 1949. Olson retired as postmaster in 1953.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Stambaugh Township4 historic placesA−Caspian4 historic placesnot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town

Questions about Gaastra’s history

What year was Gaastra founded?

The Gaastra post office opened in 1914, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

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 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.