A history of Clifton,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Clifton from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Clifton was founded in the winter of 1852–1853, when the families of Frank Kell, Joseph A. Kemp, Samuel and Monroe Locker, and T. A. McSpadden settled in the vicinity. The town was named Cliff Town after the surrounding limestone cliffs. Over the years, the name was altered to Clifton. The site was originally on the banks of Clear Branch. The Masonic Lodge hall and a log schoolhouse were the first public buildings. The post office was established in 1859. The First Presbyterian Church of Clifton was organized in 1861 and is the county's oldest church in continuous service. The Baptists built the first church building in Clifton in 1884–1885. After the Civil War, Joel Martin Stinnett, the grandfather of Joseph Kemp, built a flour mill powered by the Bosque River. In 1868, this mill was replaced by a limestone mill, which was converted to the electric power plant that provided the first e…
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Clifton’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewSign, 1939: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Clifton
See all 14 →
Clifton, decade by decade
1990s
3 historic places in Clifton
3 places in Clifton are on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Listed 1983Wilson HomesiteListed 1983Gunarus and Ingerborg Shefstad HouseListed 1983J. H. Bekken HouseThen & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Sign (1939) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (1) and the Library of Congress (5). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.