The Preble Township post office opened in 1876, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Preble (1876), Choice (1887) and Tawney (1898), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 208150 years
Founding year: the first Preble Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
What stands out about Preble Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds
Three other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
Preble
1876–1905
Choice
1887–1905
Tawney
1898–1905
18701950today
Hamlets and corners on the map
ChoiceTawney
Gone or out of use
Choice Post Officepost officeTawney Post Officepost office
5cemeteries and burying grounds inside Preble Township
ChoiceNorth SheieSaint MarysSouth ForkWisel
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The story so far
Preble Township, in brief
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Preble Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Preble Township is a township in Fillmore County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 272 at the 2000 census. Preble Township was organized in 1858, and named for Edward Preble, a U.S. Navy officer.
Its first post office opened in 1876. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 209 in 2010, 208 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Preble Township in 1912
Passages that mention Preble Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Fillmore County, Minnesota (Volume 1)1912 · page 353Read the page →
Read the text
Preble Township is the second on the eastern boundary of the county from the Iowa line on the south. It has Norway as a neighbor on the north, Black Hammer, in Houston county, on the east, Newburg on the south and Canton on the west, and is identical with a town of government survey. Nearly the whole area of the south half of the town is gentle, rolling prairie, with occasional small clumps of timber. Some of the most beautiful farms imaginable are situated in this section of the town. The
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
Preble Township, 1876 to 1965
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Preble Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1965Bratsberg 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 Preble Township.
Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
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 U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
