Founding year: the first Northwest post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
History grade
What drives Northwest’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Northwest is more historic than 6% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
D
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Northwest’s overall grade.
North Carolina towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical North Carolina town has 12.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Northwest’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (19% of North Carolina towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D− to D. The pre-1940 share (±2.2 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 →
What stands out about Northwest’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Northwest yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Northwest is a city in Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2020 census, Northwest had a population of 703. It is part of the Wilmington, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Its first post office opened in 1909. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 735 to 703 (-4%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
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.
The Northwest post office opened in 1909, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Northwest rank for history?
Northwest is more historic than 6% 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.
How old are the homes in Northwest?
2% of Northwest’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±2.2 points), against a typical 4.1% for a North Carolina town; the median home was built in 1997.
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 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.
