Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 78% of U.S. towns. What drives it
1 place in town is on the National Register, among them a historic district with 16 buildings. Below: maps from 1917 on and old-book passages.
More historic than 78% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Chester Township is more historic than 78% of U.S. towns. All 2 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its National Register listings ranks highest and its share of homes from before 1940 lowest.
Ohio towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Ohio town has 2.9 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Chester Township’s 56.7 sits above most of its state (89% of Ohio towns have fewer) while its 16 historic buildings outnumber those of 78% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: our sources. 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.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Chester Township’s history is told.
Three 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 Chester 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 Chester Township.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Chester Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Chester Township is one of the thirteen townships of Clinton County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 2,027.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 1,967 to 2,027 (+3%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Chester Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Mr. Buckley has spent the largest part of his life in Chester Township; has voted in it at every election since 1828; has never been absent from the township three months at any one time, nor lived out of sight of the settlement of his father in 1817. Mr. Buckley is now an old man upon whose head seventy-five winters have left their marks of time. He will soon have completed his life-work, and when that day shall have arrived it will find him ready, and the township will have lost one of its most upright and honorable citizens.
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.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyThe 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.
Nobody well known was born in Chester Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Chester Township is more historic than 78% 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.
One place: the Underwood Farms Rural Historic District (listed 2006).
11% of Chester Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±10.6 points), against a typical 15% for an Ohio town; the median home was built in 1994.
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 (8), the National Register of Historic Places (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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