Founding year: the first Royalton post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Royalton’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Royalton is more historic than 52% 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 Royalton’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 Royalton’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 (±5.1 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 Royalton’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Royalton was officially incorporated in September 1891. It was formed by combining the communities of Furnace Hill to the north and Port Royal to the south. Its first postmaster was Mary E. Snavely.
Early industries included a sixty-foot planing mill that was built by John McCreary in 1891 and the Middletown Shale Brick Works, which was built in the borough's southeast section circa 1900 and operated by H. O. Keener, Joseph Landis, Frank Nissley, Dr. J. C. Nissley, and S. C. Peters. Within four years, the latter business had increased its workforce to thirty and was producing roughly twenty-five thousand bricks per year.
The Royalton post office opened in 1892, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Royalton rank for history?
Royalton is more historic than 52% 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 Royalton?
36% of Royalton’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.1 points), against a typical 18% for a Pennsylvania town; the median home was built in 1954.
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 (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
2025
2025
2025
2012