Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Preakness yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Preakness is an unincorporated community located within Wayne in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 census, Preakness had a population of 18,487. The colt Preakness, after whom the Preakness Stakes Thoroughbred horse race at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland is named, was owned by Milton H. Sanford's Preakness Stables located at the corner of Valley Road and Preakness Avenue. Preakness is the birthplace of Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame trainer, Barry Littlefield and his brother Fred Littlefield, a jockey who won the 1888 Preakness Stakes. The name itself was said to have come from the Native American Minisi name Pra-qua-les for "Quail Woods" in the…
Its first post office opened in 1871.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Preakness in 1902
Passages that mention Preakness, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Preakness and the Preakness Reformed church, Passaic County, New Jersey1902Read the page →
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There may have been preaching,' too, and this is very probable, in some schoolhouse in Lower Preakness, as it was customary in olden times to use schoolhouses for preaching services on the Sabbath, as well as sometimes on weekday evenings. The oldest schoolhouse in Lower Preakness that we can get any trace of, stood just below the Isaac Van Saun house on the Preakness Race Course
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Preakness and the Preakness Reformed church, Passaic County, New Jersey1902Read the page →
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now changed into a prayer meeting, has been established here already for over half a century; while we cannot tell how much longer than that. Probably a great part of the time from the first, alternating between Upper Preakness and Power Preakness, the week day service has been held in the respective schoolhouses, as it has been for years and years back, particularly in Lower Preakness, — notwithstanding we have in later years, so far as Upper Preakness is concerned, returned to the cottage prayer meeting again.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
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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 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.
