Holmdel Township’s post office opened in 1830, and 8 of its places are on the National Register
More historic than 66% of U.S. towns · #212 of 468 in New Jersey. What drives it
Most of Holmdel Township was built recently: 3% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1988. Below: 2 old photos and papers, maps from 1888 on, and the census since 1860.
Founding year: the first Holmdel Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Holmdel Township’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Holmdel Township is more historic than 66% of U.S. towns, #212 of 468 in New Jersey. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
B+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Holmdel Township’s overall grade.
New Jersey towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical New Jersey town has 3.7 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Holmdel Township’s 16.1 sits above most of its state (73% of New Jersey towns have fewer) while its 28 historic buildings outnumber those of 81% 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 (±1.8 points) is firm at this size. 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 Holmdel Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Lost a third of its people between 1880 and 1910, then grew more than tenfold.
17 censuses, 1860–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Holmdel Township’s Wikipedia page.
On the map
Holmdel Township on the map, 1888 to 1901
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Holmdel Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1888Sandy Hook 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 Holmdel Township.
The Lenape people were present in the 1600s when Europeans first showed up in the area that is now Holmdel. Holmdel was part of the Monmouth Tract setup by the English in 1675. The area was part of Middletown township when that was set up in 1693, but, split off in 1848 to form part of Raritan township (now Hazlet) which in turn split off Holmdel Township (February 23, 1857).
The earliest work on radio astronomy was conducted by Bell Labs engineer Karl Guthe Jansky in 1931 in Holmdel. In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson of Bell Labs discovered evidence for cosmic microwave background radiation while performing research with the Holmdel Horn Antenna, earning them the Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Holmdel Township post office opened in 1830, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Holmdel Township rank for history?
Holmdel Township is more historic than 66% of U.S. towns, #212 of 468 in New Jersey. 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 Holmdel Township?
8 listings: 7 buildings, among them the Kovenhoven (listed 1974, the first), and 1 structure. 28 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Holmdel Township?
3% of Holmdel Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.8 points), against a typical 15% for a New Jersey town; the median home was built in 1988.
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 (10), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (8), 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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★ Landmark
