Founding year: Wikidata; Wikipedia’s history section gives the same year. First post office: 1827.The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Apollo’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Apollo is more historic than 91% of U.S. towns. All 3 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
A
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Apollo’s overall grade.
Pennsylvania towns list about as much on the Register as the country (a typical Pennsylvania town has 2.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Apollo’s 6.7 sits above most of its state (71% of Pennsylvania towns have fewer) while its 1 listings outnumber those of 51% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from A− to A+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±5.3 points). Two sources give 1790.
Founding year: Wikidata (other dates in Quick answers). 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 →
What stands out about Apollo’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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.
The area was sectioned in 1769, following the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, as a farm known as "Warren's Sleeping Place", named after a Native American trader from the area named Edward Warren. It was soon surveyed and divided into lots, with the town of Warren officially being added to the Greensburg register on November 9, 1816. The log cabin home of the Drake family still stands in the area, and is one of the oldest buildings in Armstrong County.
Peaked at 3,406 in 1930; 1,615 people lived here in 2020.
18 censuses, 1850–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Apollo’s Wikipedia page.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Apollo, 1883–1908
Passages that mention Apollo, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Armstrong County, Pennsylvania1883 · page 241Read the page →
Read the text
By act of assembly March 15, 1848, the town of Warren, then in the township of Kiskiminetas, was incorporated into the borough of Apollo, with all and singular the powers and franchises in said act specified. One reason for changing the name from Warren to Apollo was, because goods shipped to that point from the East were often carried past it to Warren, in Warren county, Pennsylvania.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Apollo Delphinios is the god who in the shape of his sacred dolphin showed the way to the colonists who crossed the seas in his service. On land he did the same in the form of a raven. Such legends are the marks left by the spread of Apollo worship and, in later times, by the migrations of the Greeks who felt themselves to be his servants. The dolphin and the Delphians bear kindred names ; true, we must not imagine that Del-
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.
Timeline
Apollo, 1790 to 1981
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
In 1790, according to Wikidata and Wikipedia’s history of the town. Apollo’s post office opened in 1827, and the census of 1850 counted 331 people here.
How does Apollo rank for history?
Apollo is more historic than 91% 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.
What is on the National Register in Apollo?
One place: the Drake Log Cabin (listed 1983).
How old are the homes in Apollo?
60% of Apollo’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.3 points), against a typical 18% for a Pennsylvania town; the median home was built in 1938.
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 (23), the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) 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.
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