Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
5 places in town are on the National Register, among them the Fort Davis National Historic Site, a National Historic Landmark. Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1894 on, and the census since 2000.
The Fort Davis post office opened in 1855, the earliest record of the town by name.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Fort Davis. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Fort Davis.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving. One is a National Historic Landmark, the highest tier.
★ Landmark
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Fort Davis.
It was the site of Fort Davis, established in 1854 on the San Antonio–El Paso Road through West Texas and named after Jefferson Davis, who was then the secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce. It was re-established in 1867 following the civil war.
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.
Born hereFrances Nordstrom is born here
In the archiveFort Davis, Texas in 1885
Born hereVirginia True Boardman is born here
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveStage Station at Fort Davis, Texas in 1880 (Joseph Basil Girard, painted 1908, Huntington…BuiltFort Davis National Historic Site is built
In the archiveMcDonald Observatory, operated by the University of Texas at Austin, and located3 decades in the archive, from the 1880s to the 1980s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
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 Fort Davis’ page.
Retake this view · +15Between 1,024 and 1,201 people in every census since 2000.
3 censuses, 2000–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Fort Davis’ Wikipedia page.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Fort Davis’s post office has been open since 1855.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
The Fort Davis post office opened in 1855, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
5 listings: 4 buildings and 1 site. 11 historic buildings in all.
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). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (9), the Library of Congress (2), Wikidata (1), 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.
c. 1889
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