Ballinger’s post office opened in 1886, and 17% of its homes were built before 1940
More historic than 66% of U.S. towns · #73 of 642 in Texas. What drives it
Its Register listings are the Ballinger Carnegie Library, the Van Pelt House and the Edwin and Hattie Day House. Below: maps from 1896 on and the census since 1900.
Founding year: the first Ballinger post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Ballinger’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Ballinger is more historic than 66% of U.S. towns, #73 of 642 in Texas. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B+
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Ballinger’s overall grade.
Few Texas towns list much on the Register (a typical Texas town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Ballinger’s 11.2 sits above most of its state (87% of Texas towns have fewer) while its 4 historic buildings outnumber those of 68% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B− to A−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±6.3 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 Ballinger’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Peaked at 5,302 in 1950; 3,619 people lived here in 2020.
13 censuses, 1900–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Ballinger’s Wikipedia page.
Every building
Ballinger, building by building, 1896–1922
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.
Ballinger was founded in 1886. It was established when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built a railway west from Brownwood. Runnels City, the original county seat, campaigned for selection as the new railroad terminal, but the future site of Ballinger, five miles to the south, offered a better water supply.
The 1.7-square-mile area was laid out in large lots, with a courthouse square and public park set aside for future use. Santa Fe officials offered free property to anyone who would move a home from Runnels City to Ballinger and to any church that would erect a building.
The town was named in honor of William Pitt Ballinger, a Galveston attorney and stockholder of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe.
The Ballinger post office opened in 1886, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Ballinger rank for history?
Ballinger is more historic than 66% of U.S. towns, #73 of 642 in Texas. 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 Ballinger?
Three places: the Ballinger Carnegie Library (listed 1975), the Van Pelt House (1980) and the Edwin and Hattie Day House (1985).
How old are the homes in Ballinger?
17% of Ballinger’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.3 points), against a typical 1.6% for a Texas town; the median home was built in 1956.
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 (5), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (3), 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 and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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