Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1907 on, and old-book passages.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Adams Township’s history is told.
Two 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).
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Adams Township. 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 Adams Township.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Adams Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Adams Township is one of the twelve townships of Defiance County, Ohio, United States. The 2020 census found 884 people in the township.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 947 to 884 (-7%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Adams Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
present he owns 870 acres of excellent land, higbly improved. He has held some of the petty offices of Elliott, were natives of New Jersey, and located in Adams Township, this county, in 1842, in whieh both died, he in 1859, aged sixty years; she departed this life December 2, 1875, aged sixty-seven years.
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.
In the archiveMt. Adams from Covington, Ky
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1890s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Adams Township’s page.
Retake this view · +15Nobody well known was born in Adams Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
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). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (3), the Library of Congress (1), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
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