The story
Read it all →How Mabel came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Mabel.
A post office called Mabel has been in operation since 1880. The city was named for the daughter of a railroad official.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
–Not graded
History · Mabel
Mabel’s post office opened in 1880, and 32% of its homes were built before 1940
Below: 1 old photo or paper from 1980 on and old-book passages.
1880first post office
0on the National Register
32%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
1famous people
Quick answers
How Mabel began
When was Mabel founded?
1880
The Mabel post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Bellville (1855), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
2020 census: 716146 years
Founding year: the first Mabel post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Mabel’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
★ What stands out · Help out
Start Mabel’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Mabel’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
1 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.From the old history books
What they wrote about Mabel in 1912
Passages that mention Mabel, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Fillmore County, Minnesota (Volume 1)1912 · page 390Read the page →
Read the text
To the village of Mabel belongs the credit of erecting the first modern styled graded school building in the county. The modern, single lighted graded schools in the county are at Peterson, Preston, Prosper, Mabel, Harmony and Rushford.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Fillmore County, Minnesota (Volume 1)1912 · page 439Read the page →
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The Mabel Sentinel. George W. Growley purchased the Mabel Tribune and changed the name to the Mabel Sentinel and continued it until 1895, when he took his plant to North Dakota, leaving Mabel without a paper. The subscription list was sold MABEL.
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.
Timeline
Mabel, 1855 to 1980
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
By decade
Mabel, decade by decade
One decade in the archive so far: the 1980s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
2023
2018
2009
2005Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewCornfield ready for planting near Mabel, Minnesota, 1980
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Mabel’s page.
Retake this view · +15Places that used to be
Lost post offices, old corners and places now gone
Mabel’s post office has been open since 1880. Another post office, Bellville, opened and closed inside today’s town.
Bellville
Mabel
18501940today
Hamlets and corners on the map
Green Lea Mobile Home Park
Gone or out of use
Mabellocale
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Mabel’s history
What year was Mabel founded?
The Mabel post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Memory lane
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Start a conversation
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 Wikimedia Commons (4), the Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.