More historic than 14% of U.S. towns · #204 of 285 in Washington. What drives it
Most of Mead was built recently: 0.5% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1989. Below: 2 old photos and papers, maps from 1949 on, and old-book passages.
Founding year: the first Mead post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
History grade
What drives Mead’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Mead is more historic than 14% of U.S. towns, #204 of 285 in Washington. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
D
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Mead’s overall grade.
Few Washington towns list much on the Register (a typical Washington town has 0.1 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Mead’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (27% of Washington 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 C−. The pre-1940 share (±1.0 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 Mead’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Mead yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Mead is an unincorporated suburb and census-designated place north of Spokane in Spokane County, Washington, United States. Named for Civil War general George Meade, this area is tracked by the United States Census Bureau. As of 2020, the population of Mead was 7,576. In 1900, Mead was the second stop on the Spokane Falls & Northern Railway. The community included the Cushing & Bryant general store, a blacksmith shop, a public school with approximately 60 students, a Methodist Episcopal church, and a Sunday school. At the time the post office was located in the Cushing & Bryant store. Mead is home to the computer game development firm, Cyan Worlds, makers of Myst and Riven. The Kaiser Alumi…
Its first post office opened in 1889. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 7,275 to 7,576 (+4%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Mead in 1912
Passages that mention Mead, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington1912 · page 823Read the page →
Read the text
in the ground covering the nine hundred acres that are already developed. This is practically level land and the company are putting it out to commercial orchards in five-acre tracts and have already disposed of about six hundred acres of their developed property. The railroad station at Mead on the main line of the Great Northern adjoins the tract. It also adjoins the country residence of Jay P. Graves, which adjoins the Country Club. On the east the property is bordered by the state road known as Regal street. There is every evidence that this tract will become valuable as the work of development continues and already it has netted the com-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
The Mead post office opened in 1889, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Mead rank for history?
Mead is more historic than 14% of U.S. towns, #204 of 285 in Washington. 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 Mead?
0.5% of Mead’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.0 points), against a typical 4.3% for a Washington town; the median home was built in 1989.
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 (7), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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.
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