Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listings are the Houston Coal Company Store, the World War Memorial and the Henrietta Dismukes Hospital Nurses Home. Below: 5 old photos and papers, maps from 1912 on, and the census since 1910.
The Kimball post office opened in 1902, the earliest record of the town by name. Five smaller post offices, Totten (1886), Norwood (1892) and Vivian (1892), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Kimball’s post office has been open since 1902. Five other post offices 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).
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Kimball. 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 Kimball.
From Wikipedia’s history of Kimball.
The Kimball mining disaster took place on July 18, 1919, at the Carswell coal mine in Kimball, killing six miners. Initial reports said that 221 men had been killed, but they were trapped by the explosion. A rescue party was able to dig through the wreckage, allowing 215 to return alive to the surface.
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.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
In the archiveKimball, West VirginiaOne decade in the archive so far: the 1930s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
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 Kimball’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.
Between 145 and 1,630 people in every census since 1910.
12 censuses, 1910–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Kimball’s Wikipedia page.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
The Kimball post office opened in 1902, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Three places: the Houston Coal Company Store (listed 1992), the World War Memorial (1993) and the Henrietta Dismukes Hospital Nurses Home (2026).
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 (1), the Library of Congress (5), the National Register of Historic Places (3), 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) 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.
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