Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 73% of U.S. towns. What drives it
Its Register listings are the Hiawatha Sportsman's Club 1931 Maintenance Building and Commissary and the Manitou Lodge. Below: maps from 1985 on.
More historic than 73% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Garfield Township is more historic than 73% of U.S. towns. All 2 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its National Register listings ranks highest and its share of homes from before 1940 lowest.
Few Michigan towns list much on the Register (a typical Michigan town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Garfield Township’s 22.8 sits above most of its state (87% of Michigan towns have fewer) while its 3 historic buildings outnumber those of 65% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: our sources. 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 →
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 Garfield Township’s history is told.
Two other post offices 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).
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Garfield Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Garfield Township is a civil township of Mackinac County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,146 at the 2010 census, and 1,166 in 2020.
Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 1,146 in 2010, 1,166 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
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 Garfield Township.
1985Manistique Lake 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 Garfield Township.
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.
Nobody well known was born in Garfield Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Garfield Township is more historic than 73% of U.S. towns. 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.
Two places: the Hiawatha Sportsman's Club 1931 Maintenance Building and Commissary (listed 2011) and the Manitou Lodge (2011).
12% of Garfield Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.1 points), against a typical 12% for a Michigan town; the median home was built in 1973.
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).
From the National Register of Historic Places (2), 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.
