Founding year: Wikidata. First post office: 1827.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Parma’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Parma is more historic than 69% of U.S. towns, #439 of 993 in Ohio. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
B+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Parma’s overall grade.
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 Parma’s 0.6 sits near the middle of its state (47% of Ohio towns have fewer) while its 5 historic buildings outnumber those of 70% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B to B+. The pre-1940 share (±1.7 points) is firm at this size. Two sources give 1816.
Founding year: Wikidata (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 Parma’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
In 1806, the area that would eventually become Parma and Parma Heights was originally surveyed by Abraham Tappan, a surveyor for the Connecticut Land Company, and was known as Township 6 - Range 13. This designation gave the town its first identity in the Western Reserve. Soon after, Township 6 - Range 13 was commonly referred to as "Greenbriar", supposedly for the rambling bush that grew there. Benajah Fay, his wife Ruth Wilcox Fay, and their ten children, arrivals from Lewis County, New York, were the first settlers in 1816. It was then that Greenbriar, under a newly organized government seat under Brooklyn Township, began attending to its own governmental needs.
Passages that mention Parma, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio ..1879 · page 499Read the page →
Read the text
In 1817 one Conrad Countryman, a " Mohawk Dutchman," took up a farm on the Ely tract, in the present township of Parma. Countryman lived in the western part, on the line on which afterwards ran the stage road between Cleveland and Columbus. In time he put up a blacksmith shop and a sawmill, in both of which enterprises he was the first in the township. Mr. Countryman's eldest son built a house on
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio ..1879 · page 500Read the page →
Read the text
Good gi'ass appears not to have been very plentiful in Parma for a considerable time after its settlement, as hay for the cattle had to be brought from Middleburg, little except browse being obtainable in Parma. Baking bread on a board before a wood fire and roasting meat by suspending it upon strings hung over the fire, were two of the customs of those primitive days. For some time the nearest gristmill was
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. With portraits and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers1879 · page 422Read the page →
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set ofi from Cleveland township to form the township of Brooklyn. Brooklyn's boundaries are the city of Cleveland and Lake Erie on the north, the townships of Parma and Independence on the south, the city of Cleveland and Newburg township on the east, and the township of Rockport on the west. It contains four villages, Brooklyn, "West Cleveland, Brighton and Linndale, of which the former two are incorporated.
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.
Timeline
Parma, 1816 to 1996
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In 1816, according to Wikidata. Parma’s post office opened in 1827, and the census of 1930 counted 13,899 people here.
How does Parma rank for history?
Parma is more historic than 69% of U.S. towns, #439 of 993 in Ohio. 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.
What is on the National Register in Parma?
Two places: the Lyman Stearns Farm (listed 1981) and the Phillip Henninger House (2003).
How old are the homes in Parma?
10% of Parma’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.7 points), against a typical 15% for an Ohio town; the median home was built in 1958.
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 (6), the National Register of Historic Places (2), 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.
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