Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Babb

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Babb

Babb’s post office opened in 1905

Most of Babb was built recently: 10% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1988. Below: 1 old photo or paper and maps from 1901 on.

1905first post office
0on the National Register
10%homes built before 1940
1old photo or paper
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Babb’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers

How Babb began

When was Babb founded?

1905

The Babb post office opened in 1905, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Main (1899), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 130121 years
Founding year: the first Babb post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Babb’s past

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

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 1 old photo is in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Babb’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Date a photo1 archive item has no date. Guess the decade.+2Retake an old viewSt. Mary River Bridge & Siphon, Spannin…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story

How Babb came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Babb.

Read it all →

Established in 1905 as a post office, the town of Babb was named for Cyrus C. Babb, the engineer in charge of surveying the U.S. Reclamation Service's St. Mary Irrigation Canal. The canal siphoned water from the St. Mary River into the Milk River and was one of the first Bureau of Reclamation projects in the nation.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Babb, 1899 to 1905

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1899Post officeThe Main post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1901On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  5. 1902Post officeThe Main post office closes
  6. 1905Post officeThe Babb post office opens
By decade

Babb, decade by decade

Date unknown1 to date
St. Mary River Bridge & Siphon, Spanning St. Mary RiverDate?St. Mary River Bridge & Siphon, Spanning St. Mary Riv…
On the map

Babb on the map, 1901 to 1968

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Babb. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Babb on the 1901 USGS mapBabb on the 1968 USGS map1901Browning sheet · 1:125,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Babb.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

St. Mary River Bridge & Siphon, Spanning St. Mary River
Retake this viewSt. Mary River Bridge & Siphon, Spanning St. Mary River

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Babb’s page.

Retake this view · +15
Places that used to be

Lost post offices and places now gone

Babb’s post office has been open since 1905. Another post office, Main, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Main
1899–1902
Babb
1905–today
18901960today
Gone or out of use
Main Post Officepost office

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

Questions about Babb’s history

What year was Babb founded?

The Babb post office opened in 1905, 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 →
Start a conversation
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 Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.