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History · Whitewater

Whitewater’s post office opened in 1853, and 29% of its homes were built before 1940

1853first post office
0on the National Register
29%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Whitewater began

When was Whitewater founded?

1853

The Whitewater post office opened in 1853, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, White Water (1853), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 88173 years
Founding year: the first Whitewater post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Whitewater’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 Whitewater are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
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Start Whitewater’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Whitewater’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

How Whitewater came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Whitewater.

Read it all →

Whitewater was first settled in 1866 on lands belonging to William 'Uncle Bill' DeVore and Linus Sanford. It was incorporated as a town in 1898. Whitewater was situated along the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway. In 1915, the town had a population of 350, with a number of stores, hotels, a school and churches.

The first mayor of Whitewater was P. N. O'Brien who was born in St. Louis in 1851 and who had previously lived in Cape Girardeau as he had owned the J. S. Albert Grocer Company in Cape Girardeau and helped found Shell & Albert, the first mercantile business in Whitewater; O'Brien also served the Whitewater postmaster for nearly a quarter of a century.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Whitewater, 1853 to 1889

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1853Post officeThe White Water post office opens
  3. 1855Post officeThe White Water post office closes
  4. 1889Post officeThe Whitewater 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.

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Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Whitewater’s post office has been open since 1889. Another post office, White Water, opened and closed inside today’s town.

White Water
1853–1855
Whitewater
1889–today
18501940today

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

Questions about Whitewater’s history

What year was Whitewater founded?

The Whitewater post office opened in 1853, 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 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.