Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: The original uploader was Nationalparks at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 2.5Most of Bayfield was built recently: 8% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1994. Below: 4 old photos and papers, maps from 1886 on, and the census since 1880.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Bayfield’s history is told.
Peaked at 1,689 in 1900; 584 people lived here in 2020.
14 censuses, 1880–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Bayfield’s Wikipedia page.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1886Sheet 1 of 3Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
From Wikipedia’s history of Bayfield.
Bayfield was named in 1856 for Henry Bayfield, a British Royal Topographic Engineer who explored the region in 1822–23. A post office has been in operation at Bayfield since 1856.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveBayfield from Madeline Island
BuiltBayfield Fish Hatchery is built
BuiltSevona Cabin is built
Born hereVan Cleave is born here
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyOne decade in the archive so far: the 1880s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Bayfield.
1964Sand Island sheet · 1:24,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Bayfield.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Bayfield’s page.
Retake this view · +15The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Old hamlets and crossroads still carry their names on the map.
Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
6 listings: 5 buildings, among them the Shaw Farm (listed 1976, the first), and 1 historic district, the Shaw Point Historic District, with 16 contributing buildings. 29 historic buildings in all.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (6), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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