Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 4.0More historic than 83% of U.S. towns. What drives it
6 places in town are on the National Register, among them three historic districts with 40 buildings between them. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1885 on, and the census since 1880.
The Taylors Falls post office opened in 1851, the earliest record of the town by name.
More historic than 83% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Taylors Falls is more historic than 83% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
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 Taylors Falls’ 377 sits above most of its state (100% of Minnesota towns have fewer) while its 44 historic buildings outnumber those of 84% of U.S. towns.
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 →
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 Taylors Falls’s history is told.
Lost half of its people between 1880 and 1910, then more than doubled.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Taylors Falls’ Wikipedia page.
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.
From Wikipedia’s history of Taylors Falls.
Taylors Falls was platted in 1850 or 1851, and incorporated in 1858. The city was named for Jesse Taylor, a territorial politician. A post office has been in operation in Taylors Falls since 1851.
During the logging era, Taylors Falls was the site of numerous log jams, most notably the 1886 St. Croix river log jam, a major tourist attraction.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveDevils Chair
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Taylors Falls. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Taylors Falls.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1885Sheet 1 of 1Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Taylors Falls’ page.
Retake this view · +15Taylors Falls’s post office has been open since 1851.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Taylors Falls post office opened in 1851, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Taylors Falls is more historic than 83% of U.S. towns. 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.
6 listings: 3 buildings, among them the Taylors Falls Public Library (listed 1970, the first), and 3 historic districts, the Angel's Hill Historic District, the Interstate State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style Campground and the Interstate State Park WPA/Rustic Style Historic District, with 40 contributing buildings. 44 historic buildings in all.
29% of Taylors Falls’ homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±8.1 points), against a typical 8.1% for a Minnesota town; the median home was built in 1974.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (6), the National Register of Historic Places (6), Wikipedia, 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 Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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