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History · Saint Jo

Saint Jo’s post office opened in 1873, and 12% of its homes were built before 1940

1873first post office
0on the National Register
12%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Saint Jo began

When was Saint Jo founded?

1873

The Saint Jo post office opened in 1873, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 881153 years
Founding year: the first Saint Jo post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Saint Jo’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Saint Jo are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
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Start Saint Jo’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Saint Jo’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Saint Jo came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Saint Jo.

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Established by primarily European Americans in 1856, the city was originally known as Head of Elm, named for its location at the headwaters of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, one of the four distinct headwaters. Numerous settlers came to this area from the Upper South of Tennessee and Kentucky, attracted to new opportunities in Texas.

Joe Howell was a surveyor who originally laid out the town and is credited as founder. According to one account, Irby Holt Boggess from Tennessee gave leadership in partnership with Howell in or around 1872. This account was displayed in 1986 in the Stonewall Saloon Museum on the town square of Saint Jo. It is incorporated in a story about Boggess.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

By decade

Saint Jo, decade by decade

Today6 recent
Untitled photo2014Untitled photoUntitled photo2014Untitled photoUntitled photo2014Untitled photoUntitled photo2014Untitled photoUntitled photo2008Untitled photoTXMap-doton-StJo2004TXMap-doton-StJo

Questions about Saint Jo’s history

What year was Saint Jo founded?

The Saint Jo post office opened in 1873, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

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Sources

Where this page comes from

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 (6), 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.