Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listing is the Nelson and Albin Cooperative Mercantile Association Store.
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 Nelson Township’s history is told.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Nelson Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Nelson Township is a township in Watonwan County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 309 at the 2000 census. Nelson Township was organized in 1870.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 287 to 237 (-17%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
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 Nelson Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Old hamlets and crossroads still carry their names on the map.
Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
One place: the Nelson and Albin Cooperative Mercantile Association Store (listed 1987).
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 the National Register of Historic Places (1) 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.
