Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 56% of U.S. towns · #631 of 758 in New York. What drives it
Most of LaGrange was built recently: 6% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1974. Below: maps from 1893 on and the census since 1830.
LaGrange dates its founding to 1821 (Wikipedia’s history). The census first counted it in 1830.
More historic than 56% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, LaGrange is more historic than 56% of U.S. towns, #631 of 758 in New York. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
New York towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical New York town has 12.3 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so LaGrange’s 3.1 sits below most of its state (29% of New York towns have fewer) while its 5 historic buildings outnumber those of 70% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: Wikipedia (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 →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Seven other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how LaGrange’s history is told.
Lost a third of its people between 1830 and 1920, then grew more than tenfold.
20 censuses, 1830–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on LaGrange’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of LaGrange.
The town was originally established in 1821 as "Freedom" from parts of the towns of Beekman and Fishkill. Confusion with Freedom, a town in Cattaraugus County that had been settled ten years earlier and established one year earlier, caused the name to be changed to "LaGrange" in 1828.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention LaGrange, cut from the printed page as they were published.
by the Hicksite branch and the Orthodox built the house still used on the Ridge road near the old house. Oswego meeting at Moore's Mills in the present town of LaGrange was allowed as early as 1750, and was made a Preparative Meeting in 1758. New Milford meeting, in the town of New Milford, Litchfield County, Connecticut, was not made a Preparative Meeting until 1777. It was laid down in 1828 by the Hicksites, and later by the Orthodox.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Mr. Beekman also surrendered the grant for land east of Rombout's Patent, receiving a new patent therefore granted June Si5, 1703. It embraced the northeast half of the present town of LaGrange, all of the towns of Union Vale and Beekman (except a few hundred acres in the southern angle of Beekman), about 8000 acres of the northwest portion of Pawling, and the western part of Dover. A strip one and three-eights of a mile wide along the east side of the two latter towns formed a portion of the Oblong.
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Born hereAnthony Van Wyck is born here
BuiltLaGrange District School is built
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
2013LaGrange District School, Freedom Plains, NY
2010Taconic State Parkway NB near LaGrangeville, NY
2009Dutchess CR 21 at NY 82
2009Bales of hay in an open field at sunset
2008Wappinger Creek at Red Oaks Mill
2008Red-oaks-mill-falls
2008Inn at the Falls
2008Beekman Friends Meeting House ruins, LaGrangeville, NY
2007Arlington HS front
2007AHSQuarterMile
2005Lagrange-middle-school-fall07Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of LaGrange. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of LaGrange.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
In 1821, according to Wikipedia’s history of the town. LaGrange’s post office opened in 1823, and the census of 1830 counted 2,044 people here.
LaGrange is more historic than 56% of U.S. towns, #631 of 758 in New York. 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.
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Beekman Meeting House and Friends' Cemetery (listed 1989, the first). 5 historic buildings in all.
6% of LaGrange’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±2.6 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1974.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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 (11), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (4), 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 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.
