Wickford Named A Top 3 Historic Small Town In U.S.: USA Today Poll

NORTH KINGSTOWN, RI — USA Today readers named Wickford, a village in North Kingstown, as the third best historic small town in the United States.

The newspaper released its poll results on Friday as part of its 2023 10 Best Readers' Choice Awards. To qualify, readers were only allowed to vote for cities and towns with fewer than 25,000 people.

Wickford was the only Rhode Island community to make the list.

"Europeans first settled this Rhode Island community around 1637," the USA Today article read. "Today, it features one of the Northeastern United States’ most significant collections of 18th-century dwellings, most of which are on their original foundations. The Old Narragansett Church was established in downtown Wickford in 1707 and today stands as the oldest Episcopal church building in the Northeastern United States. One of the area’s most visited historical locations is Smith’s Castle, built in 1678 by the son of one of Wickford’s earliest European settlers."

Coming in as the No. 1 historical small town in the U.S. was San Elizario, Texas. See the full list here.