Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 69% of U.S. towns. What drives it
Most of Cedar Lake was built recently: 7% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1990. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1965 on, and old-book passages.
More historic than 69% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Cedar Lake is more historic than 69% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
Wisconsin towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Wisconsin town has 3.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Cedar Lake’s 111 sits above most of its state (95% of Wisconsin towns have fewer) while its 10 historic buildings outnumber those of 76% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: our sources. 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 →
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 Cedar Lake’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Cedar Lake.
The Ojibwa were among the first to inhabit the area. In the late 1860s, the town developed from the logging industry.
S.A. Jewett Company established two logging camps in the area in 1875. Knapp, Stout & Co. purchased the S.A. Jewett Company and continued logging in the area until 1900.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Cedar Lake, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Doyle Township embraces Township 35, Range 10, west. The question of the division of the old town of Cedar Lake was submitted to the voters at the regular spring election of 1903. Seventy-six of the seventy-seven votes cast in Township 35, Range 10, were in favor of the division, and twenty-nine of the thirty-five votes cast in Township 36, Range 10, were in favor of the division.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
land, and there carried on general farming for four years. He moved to Oak Grove Township in 1906 and rented 120 acres in Section 16, where he remained for five years. In 1911, he rented a farm near Dobie. Then next year he rented a place in Cedar Lake Township, and there he farmed for six years. In 1918 he bought 120 acres in Section 31, Cedar Lake Township, which constitutes his present place. He has remodeled the house, built an addition, and put up a barn and machine shed and other buildings. He has also cleared and broken some of the land. In 1918 he sold the north eighty to one of his
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
One decade in the archive so far: the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Cedar Lake. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Cedar Lake.
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 Cedar Lake’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.
Nobody well known was born in Cedar Lake itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Another post office, Angus, opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Cedar Lake is more historic than 69% 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.
One place: the Island of Happy Days (listed 1995).
7% of Cedar Lake’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.1 points), against a typical 12% for a Wisconsin town; the median home was built in 1990.
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).
From the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, 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.
