Founding year: the first Palacios post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Palacios’ History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Palacios is more historic than 61% of U.S. towns, #89 of 642 in Texas. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Palacios’ 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 Palacios’ 11.4 sits above most of its state (87% of Texas towns have fewer) while its 5 historic buildings outnumber those of 70% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C to A. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±14.4 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 Palacios’ past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The native inhabitants of the region were the Karankawa people, whose initial contact with Europeans came in the 16th century when Spanish expeditions first traversed their territory.
In 1685, the area was explored by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the leader of an ill-fated French settlement attempt whose flagship La Belle was wrecked in the bay the following year. In the 1820s, English-speaking settlers arrived and came into frequent conflict with the Karankawa, who were eventually driven out of the area.
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 Palacios post office opened in 1903, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Palacios rank for history?
Palacios is more historic than 61% of U.S. towns, #89 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 Palacios?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Price-Farwell House (listed 2009, the first). 5 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in Palacios?
27% of Palacios’ homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±14.4 points), against a typical 1.6% for a Texas town; the median home was built in 1964.
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 (3), the Library of Congress (3), the National Register of Historic Places (4), 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.
1917
1943
1943
