Founding year: the first Medford post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Medford’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Medford is more historic than 64% of U.S. towns, #148 of 362 in Wisconsin. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Medford’s overall grade.
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 Medford’s 9.0 sits above most of its state (75% of Wisconsin towns have fewer) while its 4 listings outnumber those of 68% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B− to A−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±6.5 points). 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 Medford’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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.
Medford is located on historic Ojibwe forest land acquired by the United States in the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters. In 1864, the federal government authorized a grant of some 837,000 acres (1,308 sq mi; 3,390 km2) of this land to subsidize railway construction through the area. The Wisconsin Central Railroad Company, controlled by Boston financier Gardner Colby, obtained the land grant and constructed the railroad in the 1870s. The railroad company and a local lumber milling company laid out the city of Medford in 1875 and sold lots for twenty-five dollars each. The railroad named the new settlement after Medford, Massachusetts, the hometown of a railroad official. Medford shipped over 1.5 million board feet of lumber by rail within a year of its establishment, and the area was soon clear cut for farming.
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.
The Medford post office opened in 1874, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Medford rank for history?
Medford is more historic than 64% of U.S. towns, #148 of 362 in Wisconsin. 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.
What is on the National Register in Medford?
4 listings: 4 buildings, among them the Taylor County Courthouse (listed 1980, the first).
How old are the homes in Medford?
18% of Medford’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±6.5 points), against a typical 12% for a Wisconsin town; the median home was built in 1974.
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 (5), the Library of Congress (3), Wikidata (4), the National Register of Historic Places (4), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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 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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1914
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