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History · Plevna

Plevna’s post office opened in 1909, and 26% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1981 on and the census since 1920.

1909first post office
0on the National Register
26%homes built before 1940
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Photo: J.B. Chandler · CC BY-SA 3.0
Quick answers

How Plevna began

When was Plevna founded?

1909

The Plevna post office opened in 1909, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 241 in 19202020 census: 179117 years
Founding year: the first Plevna post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Plevna’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 Plevna are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Boom and bustPeaked at 291 in 1940; 179 people lived here in 2020.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Plevna’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Plevna’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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People over time

Plevna, census by census

0100200300192019401960198020002020Peak: 291

Peaked at 291 in 1940; 179 people lived here in 2020.

11 censuses, 1920–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Plevna’s Wikipedia page.

The story so far

Plevna, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Plevna yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Plevna is a town in Fallon County, Montana, United States. The population was 179 at the 2020 census. Plevna was founded in 1909 along the Milwaukee Road transcontinental rail line known as the Pacific Extension. Bulgarian railroad workers named the town after the city of Pleven in Bulgaria.

Its first post office opened in 1909. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 162 to 179 (+10%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

Timeline

Plevna, 1909 to 1981

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

  1. 20th century
  2. 1909Post officeThe Plevna post office opens
  3. 1940CensusPopulation peaks at 291
  4. 1981On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
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.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
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On the map

Plevna on the map in 1981

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Plevna.

Plevna on the 1981 USGS map1981Plevna sheet · 1:24,000

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

Questions about Plevna’s history

What year was Plevna founded?

The Plevna post office opened in 1909, 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 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.