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History · Watts

Watts’ post office opened in 1912, and 14% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1899 on and the census since 1920.

1912first post office

0on the National Register

14%homes built before 1940

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Quick answers

How Watts began, and where its name came from

When was Watts founded?

1912

The Watts post office opened in 1912, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 396 in 19202020 census: 227114 years

How did Watts get its name?

Watts was named for John Watts, also known as Young Tassel, a Chickamauga Cherokee chief, who died in 1802.

Founding year: the first Watts post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Name: Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.The full story ↓

What stands out about Watts’ 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 Watts are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.On the map since 18993 editions of the USGS map, 1899 to 1972. Watch Watts change.

★ What stands out · Help out

Start Watts’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos

00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s

0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.

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On the map

Watts on the map, 1899 to 1972

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

1899Siloam Springs sheet · 1:125,000

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

The story

How Watts came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Watts.

Read it all →

Watts is near the site of Old Fort Wayne, which was founded in 1838. The Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) built a line through the area in 1895-96, and in 1912, relocated its division point from Stillwell to Watts Switch, one mile north of a community called Ballard. Most of Ballard's merchants moved to the new community of Watts, along with gamblers, land speculators, construction workers and KCS employees.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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.

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People over time

Watts, census by census

Between 227 and 396 people in every census since 1920.

11 censuses, 1920–2020.

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

Questions about Watts’ history

What year was Watts founded?

The Watts post office opened in 1912, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

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

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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 Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), 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.

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