America's big cities are famous for their historic landmarks and fascinating attractions – but these towns punch above their weight when it comes to centuries-old sights. We've ranked them according to their beauty and charm, so strap in for an armchair ride through the most enchanting historic towns in every state. (If you plan on visiting any yourself, be sure to check state travel advisories and COVID-19 protocols before you go.) 

Quaint Jasper is surrounded by countryside, dropped as it is in the Ozark Mountains region, with forests, peaks and scenic byways right on the doorstep. But its historic downtown more than matches up to the surrounding natural beauty. Jasper was first established in the 1840s and by the late 19th-century its timber industry was flourishing. Today historic jewels include the listed Art-Deco courthouse and the Victorian-era Bradley House Museum.

Antiques stores, steakhouses and the popular Dogfish Head Brewery await in Milton, a historic little town in Delaware's Sussex County. The area was long settled by the indigenous Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape peoples, with British planters arriving in the 17th century. From then, the town was a hive of industry, with activities from lumbering to shipbuilding. The past is revealed in Milton's captivating Historic District, which is home to grand governors' houses and other Victorian-era buildings.

Stanley is best known for its outdoor adventures, but it's a town with plenty of history too. Fur trappers and prospectors eschewed the region in the early 19th century, but its natural beauty ultimately won people over and permanent inhabitants soon built homes and began ranching here. Visitors to Stanley can still see remnants of its early beginnings, including old country stores, cabins and drinking dens.

Mantua harks back to the mid-19th century, when a handful of Danish settlers made their home in the region and began farming flax. They lived in simple dug outs and later little log cabins. More than a century later, the town has retained all its rural charm with campgrounds, country stores and the Mantua Reservoir fringed with sandy beaches.

This artsy little spot in the southeast of North Dakota is known for the eye-catching murals that can be found all over town. It was founded at the turn of the century, and today fewer than 100 people call the village home. The 100-year-old buildings range from quaint grocery stores to an old post office, decorated with flowers, farm animals and prairie scenes.

The Peach State is crammed with towns dripping in Spanish moss, pre-war architecture and that renowned Southern charm. And Plains, in western Georgia, is one of them. The region was originally home to the indigenous Muscogee peoples, and Plains was established as a railroad town here in the 19th century. Plains is also famous as the birthplace of Jimmy Carter and there are tributes to the 39th president all over town. Visitors pore in to see Carter's campaign headquarters, his high school and the farm he was raised on.

Corydon might be small, but it packs a historical punch. The town was Indiana's first capital, serving up until 1825, and its Historic District is crammed full of attractions that bring yesteryear to life. The star is the Old State Capitol (pictured), an elegant Federal-style building finished in 1816. Visitors will also find the red-brick Governor Hendricks' Headquarters, dating to 1817, and a handful of charming 19th-century homes.

Spreading out beside the Missouri River, Brownville is the epitome of small-town American, with its snug bookstores, art galleries and family-run restaurants. The town was established in 1854, seen as a gateway to the West, and today well-preserved house museums bring the 19th century to life. There's the bold green Brown-Carson House, built in 1860 and once occupied by the town's founder, Richard Brown. There's also the tiny Didier Log Cabin, a little lodge dating back to 1854.

Rabbit Hash is a curious little town with a long history. It has its roots in the 19th century and is apparently so named due to locals' historic penchant for rabbit stew (locally known as "hash"). Fast-forward to the 21st century and the whole town is on the National Register of Historic Places: the most famous landmark is the cheerful General Store, which dates to 1831 and is still in operation. For the past 20 years, the town has also been electing a canine mayor: it's currently a plucky French Bulldog puppy named Wilbur.

Northfield is self-described as a "classic American river town". It's named for John Wesley North, who settled the land in 1855, and began by building a sawmill and a gristmill. But by the middle of the 19th century, Northfield had more to it than a thriving milling industry. It was also an intellectual hub with prestigious Northfield College (now Carleton College) founded in 1866. Today it remains an enchanting college town, with architectural jewels like Skinner Memorial Chapel on Carleton College's campus.

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Named for the russet soil banks of the Navesink River, Red Bank has a history reaching back millennia. The region was originally occupied by the indigenous Lenape peoples for thousands of years, with English settlers arriving in the 17th century. Industries like shipbuilding, tanning and textiles meant that Red Bank soon thrived, while today it's quirky art galleries and creative restaurants that make this town tick. Dating to the 1870s, the whimsical green Station House (pictured) is one of the town's standout sights.

Fincastle wears its 200+-year history like a badge of honour with museums filled with historical archives and fascinating architecture spanning centuries. It's most famous for its connection to explorers Lewis and Clark with William Clark marrying Fincastle local Judith Hancock after the 1803-1806 expedition. The crowning jewel is the Greek Revival-style Botetourt County Courthouse, whose roots go back to 1848 – it was painstakingly rebuilt after a fire in the 1970s.

Keystone is best known as a base for Mount Rushmore – the famous mountain sculpture of four revered American presidents in the rugged Black Hills. But it's also a historic destination in its own right. It was a flourishing gold-mining settlement that boomed in the late 19th century, going on to become one of the most affluent Gold Rush towns in the region. In town, visitors can ride a steam locomotive and pan for gold at the Big Thunder Gold Mine.

Idyllic Woodville is one of the oldest towns in the Magnolia State. In the early 19th century, settlers poured into the lands of Wilkinson County from regions including Virginia and Tennessee – these new inhabitants built schools, churches and sprawling plantation homes, and established the bustling town of Woodville. The town's history is written into its buildings today, from the 1904 Beaux-Arts-style Wilkinson County Courthouse to the Rosemont Plantation, dating to 1814.

With its cutesy B&Bs and little craft shops, Bentonsport seems to belong in a different era altogether. Built up in the 1830s, it sits neatly beside the Des Moines River and was both a thriving mill town and a steamboat port in its 1800s heyday. Today the Historic District preserves this slice of the past. There are 19th-century churches, blacksmith shops and houses, and there's now a rose garden within the foundations of an old mill. The striking iron bridge dates to the 1880s too.

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Home to less than 400 inhabitants, little Lucas has earned a reputation as the 'Grassroots Art Capital of Kansas'. All kinds of outsider art can be found in this cute and quirky little town, whose roots go back almost 150 years. The historic Garden of Eden, dating back to 1907, is the town's reigning attraction. It was the brainchild of Civil War veteran Samuel Perry Dinsmoor and it consists of more than 200 concrete sculptures depicting everything from giant insects to the American flag.

Perhaps it's the stunning Cascades Mountain locale, or maybe it's the wonderfully preserved historic buildings downtown – but there's something inviting about this little Oregon bolthole. The Wild West town oozes history, settled as it was in the 19th century, and the main street is laced with façades dating to the 1880s. Art galleries and a unique beer spa typically attract modern-day travellers. 

It's Bishop Hill's Swedish heritage that makes it extra special. Swedish immigrants founded the town in the 1840s and their culture and heritage is still alive and well today. Visitors can wander between 19th-century buildings, like the 1848 Colony Church (pictured) and the 1852 Bjorklund Hotel. There are also shops brimming with traditional Swedish handicrafts and restaurants dishing up plates of Swedish meatballs.

New York's picturesque Finger Lakes region has zero shortage of charming historic towns. A small community within a larger town, Skaneateles Village was incorporated in 1833 and is spread along the north edge of Skaneateles Lake. Its historic inns and enchanting 19th-century buildings act almost like a time capsule: a winning sight is the Skaneateles Library and John D. Barrow Art Gallery (pictured), an 1880s building folded within the Skaneateles Historic District.

Life moves at a temptingly slow pace in rural McClellanville, a small town on the coast of South Carolina. It's had a varied history with the land serving first as the homeland of the indigenous Sewee peoples, and later as a seaside vacation spot for affluent planters. Today McClellanville is a laid-back fishing village with annual seafood festivals, plus dreamy houses and a history museum tucked down leafy Pinckney Street. The church of St. James-Santee Parish Episcopal Church (pictured) is a pretty photo opportunity.

Now a hub for adventurers looking to strike into Alaska's wilderness, the little town of Talkeetna is rich in mining history. Miners followed the gold here in the late 19th century and the town thrived for decades: it had a population of around 1,000 at its peak. Now evidence of its Gold Rush heyday still remains about town. A favourite is the Roadhouse on Main Street – the cosy old inn was finished in 1914 and serves hot cakes made from a sourdough starter that purportedly dates back to 1902.

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This rural Maryland bolthole was named for two brothers: George and William Boone (cousins of famous pioneer Daniel Boone), who founded the town in 1792. Its growth was accelerated by the building of Bank Road, which spooled out west, and it also played its part during the Civil War: many of its public spaces doubled as hospitals for ailing troops. Now visitors are attracted to its historic core, which includes sights like the Bowman House (pictured), a striking log house built circa 1820s.

German farmers arrived in what would become the little town of Gruene in the 1840s – and the rest, as they say, is history. The first home was built by namesake Ernst Gruene, and it was a striking timber-framed house typical of German architecture at the time. Gruene flourished and was soon complete with a cotton gin, a saloon and other family businesses. Today, Gruene's German heritage and architecture has been carefully preserved with jewels like the 1878 Gruene Hall, a venue dubbed as Texas' oldest continually operating dance hall.

Charming little towns with bucket loads of history can be found all over Vermont. Among them is the Green Mountain town of Chester, dating to the 19th century. The Stone Village Historic District is exactly what it sounds like: a centuries-old area packed tight with elegant stone buildings envisioned by Scottish masons. Pictured is the cheerful red Chester Depot train station, another historic highlight. 

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The entire town of Arrow Rock is a National Historic Landmark. It's named for Arrow Rock bluff, a limestone crag that indigenous peoples once used to source flint for various uses. More settlers began to pour into the region after the War of 1812, and the town of Arrow Rock was founded in 1829. Now the town acts as a living history museum with time-honoured landmarks from the historic Lyceum Theatre to a 19th-century log cabin. The Arrow Rock Black History Museum is housed in Brown’s Lodge, which also dates to the 1800s.

Louisiana's St. Francisville is as quaint as they come. It was established in the early 19th century and was mostly the domain of wealthy planters who built lavish houses. Over the years, efforts have been made to preserve these sumptuous 19th-century plantation homes, using them to tell stories about their affluent owners and the enslaved peoples who lived here. The most popular are Rosedown Plantation, a State Historic Site, and the leafy Butler Greenwood Plantation (pictured here).

Geneva-on-the-Lake lays claim to the title of "Ohio's first summer resort". Before that, it began life as a humble farming town, which milked the fertile banks of Lake Erie. But folks soon caught on to the region's natural beauty and it became a favoured vacation spot. Public picnic grounds were established as early as 1869, and by the early 1900s the town was replete with holiday cottages, hotels and attractions from a dance hall to a casino. Today quaint lodges and one of the USA's oldest mini-golf courses offer a glimpse into the past.

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Established circa 1859, Virginia City was once a booming mining community, with silver and gold drawing prospectors from around the country – at its peak, it was home to some 25,000 residents. Today, it's city only by name and small town by nature, with historic attractions telling of its gold-rush past. Wandering through Virginia City is like stepping right back into the Old West, and visitors can see red-brick hotels and saloons, old mining buildings and ornate 19th-century churches.

Beautiful Stevensville is tucked away in Big Sky Country's Bitterroot Valley and is tipped as the place "where Montana began". The town is held up as the state's first permanent, non-indigenous settlement, as it was founded by Catholic missionaries in 1841. They began by building St. Mary's Mission (pictured), which remains well preserved today and now includes a relic-filled history museum, an art gallery and blooming grounds.

New England is packed to the gills with quaint little towns and New Hampshire's Peterborough is a fine example. Farmers settled the land in 1739 and a little, mountain-shrouded town grew up around what is modern-day Old Street Road. The Downtown area holds many echoes of past centuries, from an antiques store crammed into an 1800s farmhouses to an indie cinema dating to 1914.

A step into Mooresville is a step into the past. The town was first incorporated back in 1818 and it's lost none of its deep-rooted historic charm over the centuries. Highlights include the 1840s timber post office, tipped as the oldest operational post office in Alabama. Meanwhile, the restored Stagecoach Inn and Tavern harks right back to the 1820s, and now serves as a town hall and a dinky museum.

Medicine Park is a Wichita Mountain town in southwestern Oklahoma known for its unique red cobblestones, which line the streets and make up striking russet buildings. It's also the state's first resort town: founded by John William Elmer Thomas in 1908, it drew 20th-century travellers with its mountain views and the purported healing properties of Medicine Creek nearby. Tourists still typically come to take to the trails that wiggle around town, and to stay in historic cabins and cottages.

Held up as Tennessee's oldest town, Jonesborough was established in 1779, some 17 years before Tennessee itself became a state. It burgeoned in the 19th century, with elegant Federal-style buildings springing up across town, many of which still remain today. History comes to life on Jonesborough's Main Street, which is home to the Washington County Courthouse, pre-Civil War homes and a nostalgic 1920s theatre. Photographed is Hawley House, tipped as the oldest building in town, and therefore in the state.

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Little clothing boutiques, ice-cream shops and art galleries fill the streets of Northport, on Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula. It was a small-pox epidemic that saw to the founding of this town. In the 19th century, the disease threatened the lives of settlers in southwestern Michigan, so they pushed north and founded a settlement at the very tip of the peninsula. Fast-forward two centuries and the story is told in the Northport Area Heritage Museum.

Artsy Haleiwa, on Hawaii's North Shore, has plenty of history to share. The town owes its beginnings to a hotel of the same name, built at the end of the 19th century. From here, Haleiwa burgeoned with a new railroad and a sugar mill too. Oodles of historic buildings from the era remain, now sharing space with shaved ice spots, hip galleries and surfer boutiques. 

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Officially established as Edenton in the early 1700s, it brands itself as "North Carolina's first colonial capital" and its period architecture is wonderfully preserved. Visitors will find some of the state's oldest historic sites here, including the Georgian-style Chowan County Courthouse, built in 1767. The Colonial Waterfront Park is also connected to the Maritime Underground Railroad, which saw a network of seaman and other allies aid enslaved peoples as they sought freedom. 

Full of sultry Southern charm, Micanopy was established in the 1820s and is dubbed Florida's oldest inland town. It's crammed with historic delights, from a Gothic cemetery cloaked with oak trees to the stucco-and-brick Mountain Garage building, dating to the early 20th century. It also got a mention in John Anderson's country track Seminole Wind, released in the early Nineties.

Mystic is perhaps best known as the inspiration behind 1980s Julia Roberts film Mystic Pizza – but the town's story begins much earlier. Mystic was settled as early as 1654 and it thrived as a shipbuilding and whaling hub. Popular Mystic Seaport Museum celebrates this maritime history with a shipyard and recreated 19th-century seaport village, while visitors will find little bakeries, cosy watering holes and boutiques downtown.

Its palpable Old West history earns Cody a place on this list. The town was founded by famous cowboy showman William Frederick Cody, or 'Buffalo Bill', in 1896 and his spirit remains very much alive in town. Visitors can travel back to the Wild West at the Old Trail Town museum (pictured), with its 19th-century cabins and historic wagons.

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Modern Breckenridge is held up as one of America's greatest ski towns – but it wasn't originally that famous powder that drew people to the region. The town was established in 1859 by prospectors who struck gold along the Blue River and, by the late 1880s, Breckenridge was a mining boom town. The gold and the population dwindled in the first half of the 20th century, but Breckenridge's luck turned as a ski resort opened in the 1960s. Now it's known for its Alpine-style inns and fine restaurants, and the town's Historic District is still packed with Victorian-era architecture.

Skagit County is known for its bright, annual tulip festival and for pretty little towns like La Conner, the oldest in the county. The Swinomish Tribe has lived on the land around the Skagit River for several thousand years, with La Conner blooming at the river's edge in the 1860s. In the town's more recent history, it's become known as a hive for creatives, with respected names like Guy Anderson making their mark here. The Museum of Northwest Art is filled with work by regional artists.

Jim Thorpe is no stranger to lists of America's best small towns, and it's easy to see why. History creeps into every corner of this eastern Pennsylvania town with its Victorian-era mansions and its haunting Old Jail Museum. The town was built up on anthracite coal, with its mining heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s: visitors can still learn about the region's history at nearby Eckley Miners' Village.

Named after England's buzzy southwestern city, Rhode Island's Bristol has an altogether different vibe. The waterfront town is as quaint as can be, with museums packed into its picturesque downtown and a history spooling back to the 17th century. Bristol was incorporated as early as 1681 as part of the Plymouth Colony and also served as a state capital until 1854. A headturner is the Bristol Ferry Lighthouse, a white-washed brick beacon dating to 1855. 

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No-one's quite sure how Egg Harbor got its peculiar name: one tale pins it to a fun food fight between early fur traders in the 1820s, that saw eggs flung through the air. Over the years the town has honoured this story, with an exhibition of decorated eggs at the Egg Harbor Library and even a re-enactment of the fabled food war. A charming, shop-filled Main Street and a postcard-pretty marina are other reasons visitors tend to stick around.

Maine has more neat historic towns than you can shake a stick at, but York still remains one of the most charming. Taking up a scenic corner of southwestern Maine, the town was settled by Europeans in the 1600s, though it almost didn't last the century. Clashes with the French and the indigenous Abenaki peoples – who had long called this region of Maine home – almost razed York to the ground. Historic buildings still abound, though, from the Old Gaol to historic Jefferds' Tavern. A standout sight is the Nubble Lighthouse (pictured), which dates to the 1800s.

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The past is palpable in beautiful Bisbee, a southeastern Arizona town with its roots in the 19th century. Prospectors discovered everything from copper to gold and silver in this Mule Mountains region and the town of Bisbee was born, soon growing to be one of the largest in the area, with a population peaking at 20,000. Now the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum offers a fascinating glimpse into the past, and preserved 19th-century buildings are filled up with art galleries and trendy foodie spots.

The teensy island of Nantucket and its namesake town couldn't be more charming if they tried. It's all cobblestone streets and neat clapboard houses here, and the town is a favoured summer bolthole for affluent city slickers. The island was home to the indigenous Wampanoag tribe, with the first European settlers arriving in the 17th century, and it eventually became one of the world's whaling capitals. The Whaling Museum in town delves deep into this portion of the Nantucket's history.

There's no California town quite like Carmel-by-the-sea. Its whimsical buildings – with their timber and thatched roofs – look like they belong in a Brothers Grimm tale or, failing that, a quaint English hamlet. The buildings were the vision of designer-cum-builder Hugh Comstock in the 1920s, though the town's history stretches back much further. In fact, Iberian explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo first spied these shores as early as the 16th century. Today Carmel-by-the-sea still attracts artists and dreamers, who wander between the galleries, boutiques and family-run restaurants the town is famous for.

Taos is one of the USA's best known small towns for good reason. The town, shrouded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is a thriving artists' hub, filled with galleries, studios and community theatres. It has a history that spans millennia too. It's thought that the multi-storied adobe dwellings of Taos Pueblo were constructed between AD 1,000 and 1,450, and it's usually possible to explore the settlement on guided tours, leaving with handicrafts purchased from Pueblo artisans.

The storybook town of Harpers Ferry is protected as a National Historical Park. It boasts a scenic waterside spot, where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers meet, and it's known for its rich Civil War history. One of the most famous historic events here was abolitionist John Brown's raid on the town in 1859, taking over the federal arsenal, in an attempt to mobilise a revolt. The story is retold at the John Brown Museum and today the attractive downtown area is dotted with confectioners, jewellery stores and antiques shops.

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