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History · Valders

Valders’ post office opened in 1897, and 17% of its homes were built before 1940

1897first post office
0on the National Register
17%homes built before 1940
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Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 3.0
Quick answers

How Valders began

When was Valders founded?

1897

The Valders post office opened in 1897, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 952129 years
Founding year: the first Valders post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Valders’ past

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

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

Start Valders’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Valders came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Valders.

Read it all →

Valders was settled in the 1850s by immigrants from the Valdres mountainous region of Norway. The largest town in Valdres is Fagernes, but many immigrants arriving in Wisconsin came from the valleys of Vestre Slidre and Øystre Slidre, when hunger (sult) in these rocky hillside farms was far from unheard of. Valders did not really develop as a village until the arrival of the railroad in 1896, the traditional year of its founding. It was incorporated as a village under Wisconsin law in 1921, with William F. Christel as the first village president.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

By decade

Valders, decade by decade

Today4 recent
ValdersWisconsinVillageHall2009ValdersWisconsinVillageHallValdersWisconsinDowntown2009ValdersWisconsinDowntownValders Wisconsin2006Valders WisconsinWIMap-doton-Valders2004WIMap-doton-Valders
Places that used to be

Old corners

Valders’s post office has been open since 1897.

Hamlets and corners on the map
Nordic Lands Mobile Home Park

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Stories next door

History across the town line

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

CatoIts storyB−LibertyIts storyB

Questions about Valders’ history

What year was Valders founded?

The Valders post office opened in 1897, 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 →
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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 (4), Wikipedia, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.