Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 59% of U.S. towns. What drives it
5 places in town are on the National Register. Below: 8 old photos and papers, maps from 1984 on, and the census since 1910.
The Lemmon post office opened in 1907, the earliest record of the town by name.
More historic than 59% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Lemmon is more historic than 59% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
South Dakota towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical South Dakota town has 37.3 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Lemmon’s 66.2 sits above most of its state (83% of South Dakota towns have fewer) while its 8 historic buildings outnumber those of 74% of U.S. towns.
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 →
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 2,760 in 1950; 1,160 people lived here in 2020.
12 censuses, 1910–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Lemmon’s Wikipedia page.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Lemmon.
Lemmon's history as a town started in 1902 with the U.S. government's forced leasing of about 800,000 acres of Standing Rock Sioux Reservation lands to cattle rancher George Ed Lemmon.
In 1919, Lemmon became a sundown town, prohibiting African Americans from living there.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveLemmon Block
Born hereGale Cleven is born here
In the archiveGems of Native Stone, manufactured by R. B. Wheeler, Lemmon, S. Dak (81901)
In the archiveLemmon, South Dakota. Snow blowing
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey3 decades in the archive, from the 1900s to the 1940s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Lemmon.
1984Lemmon sheet · 1:100,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Lemmon.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Lemmon’s page.
Retake this view · +15Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Lemmon post office opened in 1907, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Lemmon is more historic than 59% 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.
5 listings: 4 buildings, among them the G. E. Lemmon House (listed 1976, the first), and 1 site. 8 historic buildings in all.
25% of Lemmon’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±8.1 points), against a typical 10% for a South Dakota town; the median home was built in 1961.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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), the Library of Congress (5), the National Register of Historic Places (5), 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) 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.
1909
1909
c. 1930
c. 1930
1942
2004