Guest, Sign inJoin

Post to Marshall

We’ll email a one-tap link to publish your post. No password, and nothing is public until you click it.
Already a member? Sign in
–Not graded
History · Marshall

Marshall’s post office opened in 1890, and 14% of its homes were built before 1940

Its Register listings are the Methodist Church of Marshall and the Angie Debo House. Below: maps from 1893 on and the census since 1910.

1890first post office
2on the National Register
14%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Add an old photoShare a memory
Quick answers

How Marshall began

When was Marshall founded?

1890

The Marshall post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 622 in 19102020 census: 210136 years
Founding year: the first Marshall post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Marshall’s 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 Marshall are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Marshall’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Marshall’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 Marshall came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Marshall.

Read it all →

Marshall began as a community when the Unassigned Lands were opened for settlement in 1889. Sylvan T. Rice opened a post office in 1890. Rice was from Marshalltown, Iowa and named the new town Marshall after his home town. He also opened the first store in 1894. The town boomed after the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893.

The Denver, Enid and Gulf Railroad built a track nearby a few years later in 1902 a half-mile from town so the entire town moved to be near the railroad. Marshall was incorporated in 1903. The railroad was bought by the Eastern Oklahoma Railway in 1907, which resold it to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in the same year.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Marshall, 1890 to 1927

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1890Post officeThe Marshall post office opens
  3. 1893On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  4. 20th century
  5. 1904Born hereMelvin Clodfelter is born here
  6. 1927BuiltAngie Debo House is built
By decade

Marshall, decade by decade

Today1 recent
OKMap-doton-Marshall2004OKMap-doton-Marshall
On the map

Marshall on the map, 1893 to 1990

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

Marshall on the 1893 USGS mapMarshall on the 1990 USGS map1893Lovell sheet · 1:62,500

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

Every building

Marshall, building by building, 1903–1908

Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.

Marshall fire insurance map, 1903, sheet 11903Sheet 1 of 2
Edition
BrickWoodStone

Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

On the National Register

2 historic places in Marshall

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

places listed
2
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
3
each building in a district counts
first listed
1984
Methodist Church of Marshall
Methodist Church of MarshallAngie Debo House, built 1927
Buildings

Architectural styles listings

Carpenter Gothic1
Bungalow/Craftsman1
Methodist Church of MarshallCarpenter Gothic
Angie Debo HouseBungalow/Craftsman · Built 1927

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

People over time

Marshall, census by census

0100200300400500600700192019401960198020002020Peak: 695

Between 210 and 695 people in every census since 1910.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Marshall’s Wikipedia page.

Questions about Marshall’s history

What year was Marshall founded?

The Marshall post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Marshall?

Two places: the Methodist Church of Marshall (listed 1984) and the Angie Debo House (1996).

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 Wikimedia Commons (1), Wikidata (1), 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 Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.