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History · Pantego

Pantego’s post office opened in 1825, and 23% of its homes were built before 1940

Its Register listings are the Pantego Academy and the Pantego School No. 2. Below: maps from 1916 on and the census since 1880.

1825first post office
2on the National Register
23%homes built before 1940
Quick answers

How Pantego began

When was Pantego founded?

1825

The Pantego post office opened in 1825, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 71 in 18802020 census: 164201 years
Founding year: the first Pantego post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Pantego’s past

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

★ What stands out · Help out

Start Pantego’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
People over time

Pantego, census by census

010020030018801900192019401960198020002020335 in 1920Low: 29

Lost two-thirds of its people between 1920 and 1940, then grew 5-fold.

15 censuses, 1880–2020.

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

On the map

Pantego on the map, 1916 to 1974

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

Pantego on the 1916 USGS mapPantego on the 1951 USGS mapPantego on the 1974 USGS map1916Belhaven sheet · 1:62,500

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

The story

How Pantego came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Pantego.

Read it all →

The town formerly had a school named Pantego High School. The town was hit by a tornado in 1991, and another on October 11, 2002, the latter an F2 tornado that was spawned by Hurricane Kyle, and destroyed two houses and a farm. The most recent tornado, rated EF2, was on April 7, 2014. It rolled along Pantego Creek, ran along one of its canals, Cuckold's Creek, and almost hit a railroad bridge and Highway 264, it took a turn, hit through a small marsh, split a house in half, and threw a truck over 40 feet high and threw it in a nearby field, the two occurred five feet from each other, the tornado then curved into a forest, destroying a Hardee's billboard, and rolled across the Cuckold's Creek again, and it slid along a field, until it curved into four houses on one side of the road, turned, hit another house across the street, hit another field. A man in a plane flew over the field it …

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Pantego, 1825 to 1920

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1825Post officeThe Pantego post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1910BuiltPantego Academy is built
  5. 1916On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  6. 1920CensusPopulation peaks at 335
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 National Register

2 historic places in Pantego

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

places listed
2
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
2
each building in a district counts
first listed
1984
Pantego Academy
All 2 listings

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Famous people

Famous people close to Pantego

Nobody well known was born in Pantego itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.

See all →

Questions about Pantego’s history

What year was Pantego founded?

The Pantego post office opened in 1825, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Pantego?

Two places: the Pantego Academy (listed 1984) and the Pantego School No. 2 (2026).

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 National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, 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.