Founding year: the first Rugby post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Rugby’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Rugby is more historic than 67% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Rugby’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 Rugby’s 20.2 sits above most of its state (76% of North Dakota towns have fewer) while its 5 historic buildings outnumber those of 70% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B− to A−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±7.0 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 Rugby’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Rugby was founded in 1886 at a junction on the Great Northern Railway, where a branch line to Bottineau met the main line. The railroad promoters initially platted the town as Rugby Junction, getting the name Rugby from the town of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. It was one of several sites along the Great Northern's transcontinental route between Devils Lake and Minot that were named after places in England (the others were Berwick, Leeds, Knox, Norwich, Penn, Surrey, Churches Ferry, Tunbridge, and York). When the community became a city, the Junction was dropped from the name.
The Rugby post office opened in 1886, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Rugby rank for history?
Rugby is more historic than 67% 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 Rugby?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Pierce County Courthouse (listed 1980, the first). 5 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Rugby?
20% of Rugby’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.0 points), against a typical 7.2% for a North Dakota town; the median home was built in 1972.
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 (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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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