The St. Paul post office opened in 1891, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Estonoa (1889), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
First census: 574 in 19202020 census: 866135 years
Founding year: the first St. Paul post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about St. Paul’s past
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St. Paul, Virginia is a town located in the Appalachian Mountains along the Clinch River. It began as a French Huguenot settlement overlooking the river in 1791, during the Cherokee-American wars. Since the creation of Wise County in 1858, it has been located partially in Wise and partly in the older Russell County. It was formerly incorporated as a town in 1911. The St. Paul Historic District and Virginia City Church are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since the 1990s, the Nature Conservancy has worked to preserve the great biodiversity in and along the Clinch River.
Passages that mention St. Paul, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of St. Paul and vicinity1912 · page 230Read the page →
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Paul proper, a small frame structure belonging to the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (now the Great Northern) and located about where the waiting room of the Union depot now is. Another station, of about the same size was located in West St. Paul, near the end of the Wabasha street bridge. West St. Paul was then a separate municipality, and in Dakota county. Its station served for the Minnesota Central (now the Milwaukee & St. Paul) and the Minnesota Valley (now the "Omaha") trains. To reach it from the city one must pay toll over the
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History of St. Paul and vicinity1912 · page 173Read the page →
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First Town Incorporation and Election The first incorporation of St. Paul was by the first legislative assembly of the territory in the fall of 1849, the act of incorporation being approved by Governor Ramsey November 1st. This act was entitled "An act to incorporate the town of St. Paul, in the county of Ramsey." The first section of this act is as follows: "Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the territory of Minnesota, That so much of the town of St. Paul as is contained in the original plat made by Ira Brunson, to-
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
St. Paul, 1889 to 1960
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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 the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
