Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Most of Pickens was built recently: 4% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1978. Its Register listings are the Tye House and the Mollie Clark House.
The Pickens post office opened in 1887, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Shiloh (1853) and Picken's Station (1858), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Pickens’s history is told.
Pickens’s post office has been open since 1887. Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikipedia’s history of Pickens.
The town was named for landowner James Pickens and was incorporated in 1858.
On May 9, 1919, an African American veteran was lynched as part of the Red Summer of 1919 because of an “improper note” written to a white woman.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Born hereOdas Nicholson is born hereThe country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
The Pickens post office opened in 1887, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Two places: the Tye House (listed 1979) and the Mollie Clark House (1980).
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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 Wikimedia Commons (1), the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
2005