Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: 2 old photos and papers, maps from 1973 on, and the census since 1920.
The Dunn Center post office opened in 1914, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Melby (1907), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Dunn Center’s history is told.
Lost half of its people between 1930 and 1970, then more than doubled.
11 censuses, 1920–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Dunn Center’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Dunn Center.
Dunn Center was laid out in 1914, when the railroad was extended to that point. The city was so named on account of its central location in Dunn County.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveDunn Center, North Dakota. Boys building snow fort
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1940s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Dunn Center.
1973Dunn Center sheet · 1:24,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Dunn Center.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Dunn Center’s page.
Retake this view · +15Nobody well known was born in Dunn Center itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Dunn Center’s post office has been open since 1914. Another post office, Melby, opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The Dunn Center post office opened in 1914, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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 Wikimedia Commons (1), the Library of Congress (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.
1942
2008