Founding year: the first Lima post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Lima’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Lima is more historic than 95% of U.S. towns. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its age lowest.
A
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Lima’s overall grade.
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 Lima’s 286 sits above most of its state (86% of New York towns have fewer) while its 59 historic buildings outnumber those of 86% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would still be A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±6.6 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 Lima’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The town of Lima was organized in 1789 (before Livingston County was established) as the "Town of Charleston", but was renamed "Lima" in 1808 to reflect that many residents had come from Old Lyme, Connecticut, and to avoid confusion with the town of Charleston in Montgomery County, New York.
The Genesee Wesleyan Seminary (1830) / Genesee College (1849) in Lima village was one of the first co-educational schools in the country when it first opened in 1822. Eventually, determined by a Methodist-Episcopal convention in 1870, the college was shut in favor of the newly developed Syracuse University (1871), over the protests of the residents of Lima.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
The Lima post office opened in 1808, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Lima rank for history?
Lima is more historic than 95% of U.S. towns. 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 Lima?
33% of Lima’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.6 points), against a typical 27% for a New York town; the median home was built in 1966.
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 (5), the Library of Congress (1), Wikipedia and Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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