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History · Adams

Adams’ post office opened in 1930, and 1 of its places is on the National Register

Most of Adams was built recently: 0.0% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1963. Its Register listing is the Adams Woodframe Grain Elevator. Below: maps from 1967 on.

1930first post office
1on the National Register
0.0%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Adams began

When was Adams founded?

1930

The Adams post office opened in 1930, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 14896 years
Founding year: the first Adams post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Adams’ past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Adams are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Adams’ homes were built before 1963.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Adams’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Adams’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story

How Adams came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Adams.

Read it all →

The post office opened June 14, 1930. The community was named for Jesse L. Adams, an engineer for the Rock Island Railroad.

Adams was the site of the Adams Woodframe Grain Elevator, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The community and its elevator were both established in 1926. The elevator was unusable from the 1980s, and was condemned because of the danger of its collapse. It was then burned down in 2018.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Adams, 1926 to 1967

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1926BuiltAdams Woodframe Grain Elevator is built
  3. 1930Post officeThe Adams post office opens
  4. 1967On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
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On the map

Adams on the map, 1967 to 1982

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Adams. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Adams on the 1967 USGS mapAdams on the 1982 USGS map1967Adams sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Adams.

On the National Register

1 historic place in Adams

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
1
each building in a district counts
first listed
1983
Adams Woodframe Grain Elevator
Adams Woodframe Grain Elevator, built 1926
Buildings
All 1 listings
Adams Woodframe Grain ElevatorBuilding · listed 1983

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Famous people

Famous people close to Adams

Nobody well known was born in Adams itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.

See all →
B
Billy DragoAmerican actor · b. 1946
Jeremy SochanAmerican-Polish basketball player · b. 2003
Michael D. BrownFormer director of the U.S. Federal Emergency M… · b. 1954
Claudia BryarActress · b. 1918
M
Martin LewisAmerican basketball player · b. 1975
Mike HargroveAmerican baseball player and coach · b. 1949

Questions about Adams’ history

What year was Adams founded?

The Adams post office opened in 1930, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Adams?

One place: the Adams Woodframe Grain Elevator (listed 1983).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

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). How TownRatings grades history →

From the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.