Founding year: the first Brookfield post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Brookfield’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Brookfield is more historic than 38% of U.S. towns, #143 of 247 in Missouri. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Brookfield’s overall grade.
Missouri towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Missouri town has 2.4 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Brookfield’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (23% of Missouri towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% 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 (±6.0 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 Brookfield’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 6,428 in 1930; 4,111 people lived here in 2020.
16 censuses, 1870–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Brookfield’s Wikipedia page.
Every building
Brookfield, building by building, 1885–1911
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.
Brookfield was surveyed in 1859 by John Wood Brooks, a native of Boston. John Wood Brooks is further remembered by the names of four Brookfield streets: John, Wood, Brooks, and Boston streets. A post office called Brookfield has been in operation since 1860.
Brookfield was located along the first railroad built across the State of Missouri, completed by the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad on February 13, 1859. Passenger rail served the town for over a century. The last daytime train passed through the town on April 9, 1968, when the Kansas City Zephyr between Chicago and Kansas City was discontinued.
Passages that mention Brookfield, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Compendium of history and biography of Linn County, Missouri1912 · page 129Read the page →
Read the text
Brookfield was made a voting precinct in Jefferson township, February 6, 1865; was incorporated as a town October 10, 1866. The township of Brookfield was organized July 2 of the same year.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Compendium of history and biography of Linn County, Missouri1912 · page 529Read the page →
Read the text
The memory of this pioneer merchant and energetic promoter of improvements in Brookfield is enshrined in the hearts of the people of Linn county, among whom he lived and was in business twenty-seven years, and to whom he gave a fine example of sterling and upright manliness and commanding business enterprise, as well as great public spirit in developing the village of Brookfield, as it was when he became a resident of it, to the dignity and consequence of a city of considerable commercial influence, importance and celebrity throughout the state of
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
Brookfield, 1860 to 1946
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
The Brookfield post office opened in 1860, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Brookfield rank for history?
Brookfield is more historic than 38% of U.S. towns, #143 of 247 in Missouri. 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.
How old are the homes in Brookfield?
19% of Brookfield’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.0 points), against a typical 8.4% for a Missouri town; the median home was built in 1960.
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), the Library of Congress (5), 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, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
1909![New Francis Bldg. [building]](https://images.townratings.com/story/10052/ab8433eddd179c1551b2-s.jpg)
1910
1910
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2018
