Founding year: the first Sparta post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Sparta’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Sparta is more historic than 23% of U.S. towns. 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 Sparta’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 Sparta’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 C. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±3.5 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 Sparta’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
A post office called Sparta has been in operation since 1876. The city's name is a transfer from Sparta, Tennessee. Sparta got rail service when a subsidiary of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (Frisco) extended a line from Ozark, Missouri to Chadwick, Missouri in the Spring of 1883. But passenger service on the Frisco line was discontinued in March 1933, and in 1934 the line from Ozark to Chadwick was abandoned entirely.
Grew from 23 people in 1880 to 1,876 in 2020, more than tenfold.
14 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Sparta’s Wikipedia page.
Questions about Sparta’s history
What year was Sparta founded?
The Sparta post office opened in 1876, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Sparta rank for history?
Sparta is more historic than 23% 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.
How old are the homes in Sparta?
7% of Sparta’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.5 points), against a typical 8.4% for a Missouri town; the median home was built in 1994.
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 (2), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), 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.
2025
2014