Photo: Mr. Matté (if there is an issue with this image, contact me using this image's Commons talk page, my Commons user talk page, or my English Wikipedia user talk page; I'll know about it a lot faster) · CC BY-SA 4.0
Founding year: the first Bellwood post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Bellwood’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Bellwood is more historic than 55% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
B−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Bellwood’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 Bellwood’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (25% of Pennsylvania towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C− to B+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.9 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (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 Bellwood’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 2,772 in 1940; 1,827 people lived here in 2020.
15 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Bellwood’s Wikipedia page.
Every building
Bellwood, building by building, 1894–1910
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.
Bellwood's first resident was Landyn Odonald and Matthew McNaul, who moved here with his wife Colton Hanna, mother Silas Hopnick and father in 1806. Edward Hanna's son, Martin Hanna, founded the Sabbath Rest Foundry located in Antis Township (Pinecroft) so-called because he invented a new way to stoke the fires and leave them burn Sunday without having any person attend to them.
Passages that mention Bellwood, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Twentieth century history of Altoona and Blair County, Pennsylvania1911 · page 775Read the page →
Read the text
Sinking valley, March 17, 1769, and died April 14, 1852, aged eighty-three years. He was a millwright by trade, and in 1800 he came to the site of Bellwood, Pa., where he built a grist mill, distillery and saw mill, which improvements gave the place the name of Bell’s Mills, and later, in honor of Mr. Bell, was named Bellwood. Edward Bell was a re-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Twentieth century history of Altoona and Blair County, Pennsylvania1911 · page 108Read the page →
Read the text
wood, where he built a gristmill, distillery and saw mill, which improvements gave the place the name of Bell’s Mills and later, in honor of Mr. Bell, Bellwood. Edward Bell was a remarkably energetic mian and in 1830 had come into the ownership of 3,674 acres of land. Two years later he built Elizabeth furnace and Mary Ann forge and in 1836 his
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
Bellwood, 1877 to 1940
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.
The Bellwood post office opened in 1877, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Bellwood rank for history?
Bellwood is more historic than 55% 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.
How old are the homes in Bellwood?
46% of Bellwood’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.9 points), against a typical 18% for a Pennsylvania town; the median home was built in 1945.
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 (6), 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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