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History · Royal

Royal’s post office opened in 1880, and 77% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1985 on and the census since 1920.

1880first post office
0on the National Register
77%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Royal began

When was Royal founded?

1880

The Royal post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Savage (1890), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

First census: 202 in 19202020 census: 58146 years
Founding year: the first Royal post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Royal’s past

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

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Royal are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Royal’s homes were built before 1938.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Royal’s collection

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

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

How Royal came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Royal.

Read it all →

The community was established in 1890 (or 1880), and was originally named "Savage". The community was renamed after Royal Thayer, who helped establish the post office.

An unusual point in the town's history is the defunct "Zoo Nebraska", which was near Royal. After some chimpanzees escaped, and were killed, the zoo gained some national attention and then ultimately collapsed. In 2019 a book about the zoo and the incident was released.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Royal in 1909

Passages that mention Royal, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Royal — Same as the present township of Royal. Verdigris — Same as the present township of Verdigris. Clay Ridge — All the present township of Lincoln, the south two-thirds of Stanton, the west one-third of Logan, and sections 17, 18, 19, 20, 29, 30, 31, and 32 in Elgin.
A history of Antelope County, Nebraska, from its first settlement in 1868 to the close of the year 18831909 · page 158Read the page →
Read the text

Royal — Same as the present township of Royal. Verdigris — Same as the present township of Verdigris. Clay Ridge — All the present township of Lincoln, the south two-thirds of Stanton, the west one-third of Logan, and sections 17, 18, 19, 20, 29, 30, 31, and 32 in Elgin.

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Timeline

Royal, 1880 to 1985

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1880Post officeThe Royal post office opens
  3. 1890Post officeThe Savage post office opens
  4. 20th century
  5. 1900Post officeThe Savage post office closes
  6. 1985On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Royal, decade by decade

Today4 recent
Royal, Nebraska from E 12012Royal, Nebraska from E 1Royal, Nebraska closed post office 12012Royal, Nebraska closed post office 1Royal, Nebraska abandoned bldgs 12012Royal, Nebraska abandoned bldgs 1NEMap-doton-Royal2005NEMap-doton-Royal
On the map

Royal on the map in 1985

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Royal.

Royal on the 1985 USGS map1985ONeill sheet · 1:100,000

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

People over time

Royal, census by census

0100200192019401960198020002020Peak: 217

Between 58 and 217 people in every census since 1920.

11 censuses, 1920–2020.

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

Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Royal’s post office has been open since 1880. Another post office, Savage, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Royal
1880–today
Savage
1890–1900
18801950today

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Royal’s history

What year was Royal founded?

The Royal post office opened in 1880, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

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 Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.