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History · Almena

Almena’s post office opened in 1888, and 15% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: 4 old photos and papers, maps from 1950 on, and the census since 1950.

1888first post office
0on the National Register
15%homes built before 1940
4old photos & papers
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Almena’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers

How Almena began

When was Almena founded?

1888

The Almena post office opened in 1888, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 406 in 19502020 census: 705138 years
Founding year: the first Almena post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Almena’s past

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

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 4 old photos are in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Almena’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
1 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old viewPanoram(a) of the home of John Till, Al…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story

How Almena came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Almena.

Read it all →

A post office called Almena has been in operation since 1888. The village's name is an amalgamation of Albert and Wilhelmina, the names of a first settler and his wife. Almena was platted in 1891. The name Almena came about after the federal government rejected the name "Lightning City" for a post office, which was derived from the nearby Lightning Creek.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Almena in 1922

Passages that mention Almena, cut from the printed page as they were published.

helped to build the Barron County Court House, the Barron High School Building, the Bank of Barron, the Barron Creamery Co. plant, and the Pa¬ vilion, as well as other lesser buildings. He is a stockholder in the Barron Creamery Co. of Barron; the Almena Telephone Co., of Almena; the Farmers Produc…
History of Barron County Wisconsin1922 · page 566Read the page →
Read the text

helped to build the Barron County Court House, the Barron High School Building, the Bank of Barron, the Barron Creamery Co. plant, and the Pa¬ vilion, as well as other lesser buildings. He is a stockholder in the Barron Creamery Co. of Barron; the Almena Telephone Co., of Almena; the Farmers Produce Co., of Almena; and the Farmers Co-operative Store at Paskin, and is one of the active members of the Farmers’ Shipping Association of Almena.

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Almena Township embraces Township 34, Range 14. It was set off from Turtle Lake on Nov. 8, 1899. The first meeting was ordered held in Weber’s Hall, in Almena village, on the first Tuesday in April, 1900. The first town officers were elected April 3, 1900, and were as follows : S. W. Sparlin (chair…
History of Barron County Wisconsin1922 · page 1055Read the page →
Read the text

Almena Township embraces Township 34, Range 14. It was set off from Turtle Lake on Nov. 8, 1899. The first meeting was ordered held in Weber’s Hall, in Almena village, on the first Tuesday in April, 1900. The first town officers were elected April 3, 1900, and were as follows : S. W. Sparlin (chair¬ man), A. Breisemeister and John Oakes, supervisors; Otto Heider, clerk; Math Dold, treasurer; Joe Blechinger, Louis Larson and S. W. Sparlin, justices; Math Dold and Math Hellev, constables; John A. Cornwall, assessor. The present officers are: Supervisors, Julius Soltau (chairman), W. F. Weise and Joseph

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.

Timeline

Almena, 1888 to 1950

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1888Post officeThe Almena post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1909In the archivePanoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, Wis
  5. 1950On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Almena, decade by decade

One decade in the archive so far: the 1900s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1900s4 items
Panoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, Wis1909Panoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, WisPanoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, Wis1909Panoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, WisDaily increasing crowds at John Till's1909Daily increasing crowds at John Till'sPanoram[a] of the home of John Till1909Panoram[a] of the home of John Till
1910s–1990snothing yet
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Add from your album
On the map

Almena on the map, 1950 to 1978

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Almena. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Almena on the 1950 USGS mapAlmena on the 1978 USGS map1950Turtle Lake sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Almena.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Panoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, Wis
Retake this viewPanoram(a) of the home of John Till, Almena, Wis, 1909

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Almena’s page.

Retake this view · +15
People over time

Almena, census by census

02004006008001960198020002020Peak: 720

Between 398 and 720 people in every census since 1950.

8 censuses, 1950–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Almena’s Wikipedia page.

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

ClintonIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town

Questions about Almena’s history

What year was Almena founded?

The Almena post office opened in 1888, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

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

Town Square →
Start a conversation
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 (2), the Library of Congress (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.