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History · San Mateo

San Mateo’s post office opened in 1876

Most of San Mateo was built recently: 0.0% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1991.

1876first post office
0on the National Register
0.0%homes built before 1940
1famous people
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Quick answers

How San Mateo began

When was San Mateo founded?

1876

The San Mateo post office opened in 1876, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 139150 years
Founding year: the first San Mateo post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about San Mateo’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 San Mateo are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
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Start San Mateo’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how San Mateo’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 so far

San Mateo, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of San Mateo yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

San Mateo is a census-designated place in Cibola County, New Mexico, United States. As of the 2020 census, San Mateo had a population of 139. The community has a Catholic church, a Baptist church, a Morada, a cemetery, a Volunteer Fire Department(McKinley County funded) and an old abandoned elementary school. It is also coined "the Uranium Capital of the World".

Its first post office opened in 1876. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 161 to 139 (-14%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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Questions about San Mateo’s history

What year was San Mateo founded?

The San Mateo post office opened in 1876, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

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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 Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.