Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: old-book passages.
The Mound Prairie Township post office opened in 1871, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Lorettee (1856), San Jacinto (1856) and Mound Prairie (1871), opened inside today’s town 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 Mound Prairie Township’s history is told.
Three 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).
From Wikipedia’s history of Mound Prairie Township.
Mound Prairie Township was organized in 1860, and named after a nearby hill surrounded by prairie.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Mound Prairie Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
District No. 11, Mound Prairie Township. The first school was in a log structure put together by Mr. Van Sickle, on section 21. It was presided over by E. S. Lore, which must have been in 1856. In 1861 a schoolhouse was built of logs by subscription, the size being 16 by 20 feet. James Connor was the first teacher in the new building.
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.
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Nobody well known was born in Mound Prairie Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Mound Prairie Township post office opened in 1871, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 Wikipedia, 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.
