Most of Kiln was built recently: 2% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1990. 1 place in town is on the National Register, among them a historic district with 6 buildings. Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1959 on, and the census since 1990.
Founding year: the first Kiln post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Kiln’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Kiln is more historic than 34% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Kiln’s overall grade.
Mississippi towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Mississippi town has 71.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Kiln’s 29.8 sits near the middle of its state (61% of Mississippi towns have fewer) while its 6 historic buildings outnumber those of 72% 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 (±1.6 points) is firm at this size. 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 →
The earliest inhabitants of the area were Choctaw and Muscogee Indians, who lived along the banks of a river (later named the Jourdan River) emptying into the Bay of Saint Louis. These tribes hunted, fished, and trapped on the land prior to settlement by the French. In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a French explorer, claimed the region for France and named it "Louisiana", in honor of King Louis XIV, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast became part of the Lower Louisiana District.
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 Kiln post office opened in 1887, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Kiln rank for history?
Kiln is more historic than 34% 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.
What is on the National Register in Kiln?
One place: the Holly Bluff on-the-Jordan (listed 2025).
How old are the homes in Kiln?
2% of Kiln’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.6 points), against a typical 4.5% for a Mississippi town; the median home was built in 1990.
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 (9), the Library of Congress (3), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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) 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.
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