Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Nyttend · Public domainMore historic than 86% of U.S. towns · #221 of 993 in Ohio. What drives it
Its Register listings are the Mt. Tabor Church Building, Cemetery and Hitching Lot. Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1914 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, Salem Township is more historic than 86% of U.S. towns, #221 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 Salem Township’s 15.9 sits above most of its state (79% of Ohio towns have fewer) while its 4 historic buildings outnumber those of 68% 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.
Four 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 Salem 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 Salem Township.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Salem Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Salem Township is one of the twelve townships of Champaign County, Ohio, United States. The 2020 census reported 2,488 people living in the township.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 2,539 to 2,488 (-2%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Salem Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Noah Troyer, a member and remarkable minister of the Amish society, lived in Salem Township from 1847 to 1862 — fifteen years. In September, 1880, he visited his old home and neighbors in Salem Township. Since some time in the year 1878, he has been strangely held by nervous or other peculiar symptoms. About 4 o’clock, P. M., every day, he is generally attacked with severe spasmodic action of the muscular system, which continues to grow worse until about 7 o’clock, when he is thrown into a deep sleep or trance ; soon after, he will partly arise from his bed and kneel and offer a short and impressive prayer ;
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 archiveShrubbery
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1900s. 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 Salem Township’s page.
Retake this view · +15The 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.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Salem Township is more historic than 86% of U.S. towns, #221 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.
2 listings: 1 building, among them the Mt. Tabor Church Building, Cemetery and Hitching Lot (listed 1995, the first). 4 historic buildings in all.
22% of Salem Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±8.7 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 (6), the Library of Congress (5), 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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