Rockford’s post office opened in 1856, and 1 of its places is on the National Register
More historic than 44% of U.S. towns · #123 of 273 in Minnesota. What drives it
Most of Rockford was built recently: 5% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1995. Its Register listing is the Ames-Florida House. Below: maps from 1909 on and the census since 1880.
Founding year: the first Rockford post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Rockford’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Rockford is more historic than 44% of U.S. towns, #123 of 273 in Minnesota. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
C+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Rockford’s overall grade.
Minnesota towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Minnesota town has 2.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Rockford’s 8.7 sits above most of its state (74% of Minnesota towns have fewer) while its 4 historic buildings outnumber those of 68% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C− to B. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±3.2 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Rockford’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Evidence of indigenous settlement in what is today Rockford can be found in burial mounds ranging from 500 to 1500 years old, as well as a trail that runs under the Bridge Street Bridge on the Hennepin County side. The area was a natural borderland between the Ojibwe and Dakota, with both tribes using it for hunting and wintering. The space was primarily used by the Dakota, but there was also an Objibwe village near modern-day Dayton, on the Crow River.
Passages that mention Rockford, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Wright County, Minnesota volume II1915 · page 793Read the page →
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The Rockford and Minneapolis road, as already related, was laid ont in 1856, and during the next two years the citizens of Rockford spent much time and money keeping the road clear and open and building bridges over creeks and marshes in towns in Hennepin county where the residents took too little interest to do anything themselves. In October, 1857, a county road was surveyed and laid out from Rockford to Monticello, by the way of Beebe and Pelican lakes: also a county road from Rockford to
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History of Wright County, Minnesota volume II1915 · page 1103Read the page →
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Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church, Town of Rockford. Very closely interwoven with the history of Salem church is the history of Trinity church in the town of Rockford. Trinity church is to be found four miles south of Buffalo on the Buffalo- Montrose road. The history of the congregation dates back presumably to 1882, when under the pastorate of Rev. C. J. Albrecht, of Greenwood, the congregation was organized and the church was built. This congregation has always been closely connected
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Lineage and family records of Alfred Wyman Hoar and his wife Josephine Jackson1898 · page 54Read the page →
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Rockford had a saw mill in 1856 and a grist mill soon after. Other sawmills were built previous to 1860. We will here close our early notes of the County by inserting a few notes taken from the official records of the county.
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
Rockford, 1856 to 1960
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Rockford post office opened in 1856, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Rockford rank for history?
Rockford is more historic than 44% of U.S. towns, #123 of 273 in Minnesota. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Rockford?
One place: the Ames-Florida House (listed 1979).
How old are the homes in Rockford?
5% of Rockford’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.2 points), against a typical 8.1% for a Minnesota town; the median home was built in 1995.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via 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.
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