Founding year: the first Penhook post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Penhook’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Penhook is more historic than 10% of U.S. towns. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
D
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Penhook’s overall grade.
Virginia towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Virginia town has 3.6 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Penhook’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (17% of Virginia 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 (±1.7 points) is firm at this size. 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 Penhook’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
One of the older buildings in Penhook is the Old Chapel Church, located at 436 Old Chapel Road. This church house, also known as "Snow Creek Chapel", was built as a chapel of ease by the Church of England, by the Camden vestry, in 1769. In 2017, the Old Chapel Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Gov. Terry McAuliffe has also deemed the church a “Virginia Treasure,” a designation for ecological, cultural, scenic and recreational assets.
The Penhook post office opened in 1854, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Penhook rank for history?
Penhook is more historic than 10% 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 Penhook?
0.0% of Penhook’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.7 points), against a typical 1.9% for a Virginia town; the median home was built in 1993.
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 Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
