Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 86% of U.S. towns · #213 of 993 in Ohio. What drives it
8 places in town are on the National Register, among them the DONALD B (towboat), a National Historic Landmark. Below: maps from 1931 on and old-book passages.
More historic than 86% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Pleasant Township is more historic than 86% of U.S. towns, #213 of 993 in Ohio. 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 Pleasant Township’s 89.8 sits above most of its state (92% of Ohio towns have fewer) while its 51 historic buildings outnumber those of 85% 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 Pleasant Township’s history is told.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving. 2 are National Historic Landmarks, the highest tier.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Pleasant Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Pleasant Township is one of the sixteen townships of Brown County, Ohio, United States. The 2020 census found 5,643 people in the township.
Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 5,745 in 2010, 5,643 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Pleasant Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
At the first session of the Clermont County Commissioners at Williamsburg, beginning on the first Monday in June, 1904, Edward Hall was allowed $9 for services as Supervisor of Highways in Pleasant Township. Thomas McFarland was granted $1.50 for killing one old wolf, January 22, 1804. On July 23, 1804, Henry Chapman was allowed $1 for returning the poll book of Pleasant Township. In 1804, the name of William White appears as Lister of Taxable Property in Pleasant Township.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Where the first school in Pleasant Township was held, who taught and who attended it, can never be known. The oldest residents in the township are the youngest members of the second generation of settlers, and their memories are all the light we have in ascertaining something of the early schools, and their remembrance does not and cannot extend back to the period when schools were probably introduced, in their most rudimentary form, it is true, in the pioneer settlement. A Mr. Holmes and Mr. Bartlett, the latter a New Englander, were among the first pedagogues who swayed the ferule and held
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The earliest pioneers were obliged at first to convey their corn to mills across the river; but, as time advanced, little horse mills, then water mills, were started in different localities in the county. The two streams that confine Pleasant Township on the east and west each had a number of mills on their banks, but the greater number of them were built on the other sides of the streams, and do not belong properly to this township. On Straight Creek, William Huggins built a mill in Pleasant Township in an early day, in the northern part of the Merri weather Survey. It contained two run of buhrs, and
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The earliest preaching in Pleasant Township of which any knowledge is had consisted of a series of Shaker religious meetings at John Sharp’s house, in the northeastern part of the township, on Camp Run. H. Steigler now owns the farm where they were held. William Jennings remembers distinctly that he could hear the wild shouting and dancing in the meetings from his father’s cabin, a half-mile or more distant. Mr. Sharp and his entire family, except one son, Benjamin, joined the community, and removed with it to Warren County. One of the boys, Nathan, rose to an important office of trust in
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.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pleasant 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 Pleasant Township.
Nobody well known was born in Pleasant Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Another post office, Sunshine, 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).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Pleasant Township is more historic than 86% of U.S. towns, #213 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.
8 listings, 2 of them National Historic Landmarks: 2 buildings, among them the Thompson Farm (listed 1976, the first), and 1 structure. 51 historic buildings in all.
15% of Pleasant Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.6 points), against a typical 15% for an Ohio 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 (2), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (3), 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.
★ Landmark
2015
2012
