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Welcome to Meadowlands sign in Saint Louis County, MinnesotaPhoto: Lorie Shaull · CC BY 2.0
–Not graded
History · Meadowlands Township

27% of Meadowlands Township’s homes were built before 1940

Its Register listing is the Western Bohemian Fraternal Union Hall. Below: maps from 1963 on and the census since 1930.

1on the National Register
27%homes built before 1940
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What stands out about Meadowlands Township’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 Meadowlands Township are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Meadowlands Township’s homes were built before 1960.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Meadowlands Township’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Meadowlands Township’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 Meadowlands Township came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Meadowlands Township.

Read it all →

Meadowlands, as its name would suggest, is one of the few areas of arable land in Saint Louis County. While Meadowlands prospered and grew due to the support it provided to the region's farms, the steady decline in those same farms (and the large families they supported) during the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s heralded the beginning of the town's gradual decline.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Meadowlands Township, 1904 to 1972

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1904Post officeThe Payne post office opens
  3. 1925BuiltWestern Bohemian Fraternal Union Hall is built
  4. 1963On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  5. 1972Post officeThe Payne post office closes
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.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
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On the map

Meadowlands Township on the map in 1963

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Meadowlands Township.

Meadowlands Township on the 1963 USGS map1963Meadowlands sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Meadowlands Township.

On the National Register

1 historic place in Meadowlands Township

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
1
each building in a district counts
first listed
1986
Western Bohemian Fraternal Union Hall
Western Bohemian Fraternal Union Hall, built 1925
Buildings
Western Bohemian Fraternal Union HallBuilt 1925

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

People over time

Meadowlands Township, census by census

010019401960198020002020Peak: 176

Between 92 and 176 people in every census since 1930.

10 censuses, 1930–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Meadowlands Township’s Wikipedia page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds

Another post office, Payne, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Hamlets and corners on the map
BirchPayne
Gone or out of use
Payne Post Officepost officePayne Stationlocale
1cemetery inside Meadowlands Township
Meadowlands

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Stories next door

History across the town line

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

Elmer Township1 historic placenot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townNess TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townAlborn TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townKelsey TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townNorthland TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townToivola TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town

Questions about Meadowlands Township’s history

What is on the National Register in Meadowlands Township?

One place: the Western Bohemian Fraternal Union Hall (listed 1986).

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 the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via 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.