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History · Kidder

Kidder’s post office opened in 1860, and 31% of its homes were built before 1940

1860first post office
0on the National Register
31%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Kidder began

When was Kidder founded?

1860

The Kidder post office opened in 1860, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Emmett (1860), opened inside today’s city and later closed.

2020 census: 267166 years
Founding year: the first Kidder post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Kidder’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Kidder are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Kidder’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Kidder’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story so far

Kidder, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Kidder yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Kidder is a city in northwest Caldwell County, Missouri. The population was 267 at the 2020 census. The city was laid out in 1860 by H.B. Kidder or (Henry P. Kidder), of the Kidder Land Company in Boston, which was seeking to encourage non-slave owning European immigrants to settle along the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad which at the time was the furthest west railroad in the United States. The city received national publicity in 2004 after a student at the Thayer Learning Center in the community died after not receiving treatment early enough. In 2009 the Center was sold to become the White Buffalo Academy. The campus was formerly Thayer College and Thayer High School. Thayer College wa…

Its first post office opened in 1860. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 323 to 267 (-17%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

Timeline

Kidder, 1860 to 1860

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1860Post officeThe Emmett post office opens
  3. 1860Post officeThe Emmett post office closes
  4. 1860Post officeThe Kidder post office opens
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
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Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Kidder’s post office has been open since 1860. Another post office, Emmett, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Emmett
1860–1860
Kidder
1860–today
18601940today

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Hamilton Township1 historic placeB

Questions about Kidder’s history

What year was Kidder founded?

The Kidder post office opened in 1860, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

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 US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) 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.