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History · Mounds

Mounds’ post office opened in 1898, and 13% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1901 on and the census since 1910.

1898first post office
0on the National Register
13%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Add an old photoShare a memory
Quick answers

How Mounds began

When was Mounds founded?

1898

The Mounds post office opened in 1898, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 701 in 19102020 census: 932128 years
Founding year: the first Mounds post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Mounds’ 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 Mounds are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Mapped building by building4 fire insurance maps, 1901 to 1915, drew every building in Mounds.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Mounds’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Mounds’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
Every building

Mounds, building by building, 1901–1915

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.

Mounds fire insurance map, 1901, sheet 11901Sheet 1 of 1
Edition
Sheets
BrickWoodStone

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

The story

How Mounds came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Mounds.

Read it all →

The post office for this community was established in 1895 and originally named "Posey", for the Creek poet Alexander Posey, who lived in Eufaula, Oklahoma. In 1898, the town was moved 5 miles (8 km) southwest and renamed "Mounds" for twin hills that were nearby. By 1901, the St. Louis, Oklahoma and Southern Railway (later the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway) built a track through Mounds, and the town became an important cattle shipping point. Mounds incorporated as a city in the same year. The discovery of oil in the Glenn Pool field in 1905 turned Mounds into a shipping point for crude oil instead of cattle.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Mounds, 1898 to 1935

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1898Post officeThe Mounds post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1914On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  5. 1935Born hereReuben Wilson is born here
By decade

Mounds, decade by decade

Today3 recent
Mounds Mural 7-2025 Wikipedia2025Mounds Mural 7-2025 WikipediaMounds Downtown 7-2025 Wikipedia2025Mounds Downtown 7-2025 WikipediaOKMap-doton-Mounds2004OKMap-doton-Mounds
On the map

Mounds on the map in 1914

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Mounds.

Mounds on the 1914 USGS map1914Kiefer 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 Mounds.

People over time

Mounds, census by census

02004006008001,0001,200192019401960198020002020Peak: 1,168

Between 560 and 1,168 people in every census since 1910.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

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

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Sapulpa7 historic placesBGlenpoolIts storyD−

Questions about Mounds’ history

What year was Mounds founded?

The Mounds post office opened in 1898, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

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 (3), 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.