Founding year: the first Lodi post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Lodi’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Lodi is more historic than 33% of U.S. towns, #396 of 468 in New Jersey. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Lodi’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 Lodi’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (12% of New Jersey towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to B−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±3.8 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 Lodi’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The borough of Lodi was incorporated in 1894 from portions of the former Lodi Township and Saddle River Township and was a destination for thousands of immigrants to work at mills along the Saddle River.
Multiple dye and chemical factories moved to Lodi after the 1940s, replacing earlier textile factories. In 1995, A lethal explosion at the Napp Technologies plant killed five and injured two. An explosion on the same site in 1969 killed one person and injured seven. Another explosion at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company in 1973 killed seven workers.
Passages that mention Lodi, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Bergen county, New Jersey1900 · page 354Read the page →
Read the text
The township of Lodi was organized in 1825, and at that time contained about 22,00(1 acres of land, but many changes have been made since then, the first beingthe setting off of the township of Union in 1852. Lodi was named from a flourishing town of Italy, founded by the Bois, and colonized by the father of Pompeii the Great. Hence the name of Laus Pompeia, which was corrupted gradually into the cognomen it bears at the present time. Lodi is celebrated for the victory of the French, under Bonaparte, over the Austrians, in 1796. It is said
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Bergen county, New Jersey1900 · page 374Read the page →
Read the text
This Church was built in 1873. Father Mondorf also acts as Rector of St. Francis De Sales' Church in the village of Lodi, three and a half miles distant. The little Catholic Church in Lodi was built in 1854 and was dedicated by Rt. Rev. Bishop Bailey of Newark on the 2 its of December in the same year.
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
Lodi, 1851 to 1999
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
The Lodi post office opened in 1851, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Lodi rank for history?
Lodi is more historic than 33% of U.S. towns, #396 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.
How old are the homes in Lodi?
17% of Lodi’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.8 points), against a typical 15% for a New Jersey town; the median home was built in 1958.
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 (6), 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), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
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