Founding year: the first Crosby post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Crosby’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Crosby is more historic than 44% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
C+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Crosby’s overall grade.
North Dakota towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical North Dakota town has 2.8 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Crosby’s 18.8 sits above most of its state (74% of North Dakota towns have fewer) while its 2 historic buildings outnumber those of 60% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C to B+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±6.5 points). 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 Crosby’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Crosby was founded in 1904 at the end of a Great Northern Railway branch line that began in Berthold. At the time, it was a town. Crosby became a village in 1907, three years before the creation of Divide County and its acceptance as county seat. It became a statutory city in 1967.
Crosby has one listing on the National Register for Historic Places, the Divide County Courthouse, which was built in 1917 and nominated for the list the same year.
The name comes from S. A. Crosby, a businessman from Portal involved in establishing the city.
The Crosby post office opened in 1904, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Crosby rank for history?
Crosby is more historic than 44% 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.
What is on the National Register in Crosby?
One place: the Divide County Courthouse (listed 1980).
How old are the homes in Crosby?
16% of Crosby’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.5 points), against a typical 7.2% for a North Dakota town; the median home was built in 1973.
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 Wikimedia Commons (1), the Library of Congress (11), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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.
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