Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
2 places in town are on the National Register, among them a historic district with 32 buildings. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1894 on, and the census since 1870.
The Lanesboro post office opened in 1883, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Lanesborough (1868), 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 Lanesboro’s history is told.
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.
Peaked at 1,102 in 1900; 724 people lived here in 2020.
16 censuses, 1870–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Lanesboro’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Lanesboro.
Lanesboro was platted in 1868. A post office was established as Lanesboro in 1868, and the name was changed to Lanesboro in 1883. The city was named for one of its founders, F. A. Lane.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Lanesboro, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Lanesboro was laid out, platted and recorded in the spring of 1868 by the Lanesboro Company. There are two opinions as to the true source of the village name. Many claim that the town was named after the old New England town, Lanesborough, from whence a number of the early settlers came, while others insist that the town was named in honor of F. A. Lane, one of the principal stockholders in the Lanesboro Townsite Company.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Lanesboro Townsite Company. In the summer of 1868, a joint stock company was formed in New York, with a capital of about $62,500, the object being to build up the town of Lanesboro, and to be known under the above caption. The capital of the company was divided into twenty-five shares of $2,500 each, and the following were the stockholders of the company : C. W. Thompson, 5 shares; Eliza Thompson, 1 share; Wm. Windom, 1 share; H. W. Holley, 1 share; C. G. Wyckoff, 1 share; F. A. Lane, 3
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.
In the archivePSM V19 D627 Ancient clay image found at
Born hereEdwin Vincent O'Hara is born here
Born hereArthur B. Langlie is born here
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1880s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Lanesboro. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Lanesboro.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1894Sheet 1 of 3Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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 Lanesboro’s page.
Retake this view · +15Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Lanesboro’s post office has been open since 1883. Another post office, Lanesborough, 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).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Lanesboro post office opened in 1883, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Two places: the Michael Scanlan House (listed 1982) and the Lanesboro Historic District Boundary Expansion (2017).
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 (6), the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, 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, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
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