Founding year: the first Turtle Lake post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
History grade
What drives Turtle Lake’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Turtle Lake is more historic than 32% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Turtle Lake’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 Turtle Lake’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (28% of Wisconsin 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 C− to C+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±5.0 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 Turtle Lake’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 Turtle Lake yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Turtle Lake is a village in Barron and Polk counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Its population was 1,037 at the 2020 census. Of these, 959 were in Barron County, and 78 were in Polk County. The village is located between the towns of Almena, in Barron County, and Beaver, in Polk County.
Its first post office opened in 1879. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 1,050 in 2010, 1,037 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Turtle Lake in 1922
Passages that mention Turtle Lake, cut from the printed page as they were published.
“Three new buildings have been added during the year; one in the town of Maple Grove, costing $539 ; another in the town of Cumberland, costing $660 ; and a third in the town of Turtle Lake, costing $767.95. “There are now in the county 110 districts, the number of departments being 132. There are 133 teachers, the extra one being the assistant principal at Cumberland.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The Turtle Lake post office opened in 1879, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Turtle Lake rank for history?
Turtle Lake is more historic than 32% 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.
How old are the homes in Turtle Lake?
12% of Turtle Lake’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.0 points), against a typical 12% for a Wisconsin town; the median home was built in 1977.
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 Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
