Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 66% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Van Buren Township is more historic than 66% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
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 Van Buren Township’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (23% of Ohio towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% 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).
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Van Buren Township’s history is told.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Van Buren Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Van Buren Township is one of the twenty townships of Darke County, Ohio, United States. The 2020 census found 1,528 people in the township.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 1,469 to 1,528 (+4%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Van Buren Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Another prominent belt of surface bowlders, three or four hundred yards in width, is seen to extend from the northern part of Van Buren Township, in a southwesterly course, crossing the Dayton & Union Railroad a few miles south of Jaysville, thence, with a bend to the southeast, through Twin Township, near Ithaca, into Preble County. Bowlders in Van Buren Township are eight to ten feet through, and there are examples where they have a diameter of twelve feet. This moraine was long regarded as impassable and untillable. but these difficulties have been overcome, and the belt produces average crops, and the rough, rock}' roads are at least
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
seeming mourners of a drifting center of settlement, and Abbott was one of those not favored. Storekeeping was first engaged in by George and William Falkners and in addition to the store, there, was a wagon and blacksmith shop. Delisle, now the only village regularly laid out in Van Buren Township, was platted under direction of the widow Fairchild in 1850. and a building for the purpose having been erected, the pioneer store in the place was opened by John Tillman and Jesse Lease. Aaron Vanatta was the first smith. The village, as at present constituted, contains a dry -goods and grocery store, a blacksmith and a wagon shop and saw-
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 SurveyEvery edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Van Buren 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 Van Buren Township.
Nobody well known was born in Van Buren Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Van Buren Township is more historic than 66% 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.
44% of Van Buren Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±16.7 points), against a typical 15% for an Ohio town; the median home was built in 1961.
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), 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.
2015
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