Founding year: the first Tornillo post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Tornillo’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Tornillo is more historic than 3% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
D−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Tornillo’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 Tornillo’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (34% of Texas towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D− to D. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±3.4 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 Tornillo’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The town of Tornillo derives its name from the Spanish word for screw-bean bush, a hardy firewood once prevalent in the area. Tornillo was first platted in 1909 by a group of businessmen from El Paso, Texas who had formed the Tornillo Townsite Company. The first post office in the town opened the same year. Tornillo became the first agricultural area to be approved as part of the Rio Grande Irrigation Project after 1916. Cotton became the main crop in the region, however, by 1970, pecans were also a major agricultural crop in the area.
The Tornillo post office opened in 1909, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Tornillo rank for history?
Tornillo is more historic than 3% 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.
How old are the homes in Tornillo?
0.0% of Tornillo’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.4 points), against a typical 1.6% for a Texas town; the median home was built in 1992.
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 (1), 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.
2019
