In the Sims 2 there were mods that made a town more historical. NPC's would wear certain historical clothes, the roads were all dirt, etc. Are there any mods for Sims 3 that are similar? TIA

I can't help, but I'm interested too.

I've not seen anything like that. I suppose you'd have to do that "manually". Find a roadless world, historical clothing, etc. There is a bicycle mod for roadless worlds. You can probably use a mod to have no cars. Stuff like that. Here is a list of Historical Finds but it's really outdated and has broken links but might help you with some ideas.
https://modthesims.info/wiki.php?ti...ical_and_Ethnic

It's not a one-and-done process, unfortunately. You'll have to get a lot of CC and do a lot of mod tweaking in order to get your game perfectly historical.

There are dirt roads, but there's only a few mods that I'm aware of to replace traffic with more historical alternates. (Danjaley has a mod for the ice cream van and for the inexpensive cars and taxis at danjaley.tumblr.com . ) The dirt roads can be found here: http://simscave.mustbedestroyed.org...p?topic=32653.0 (you may need a login).

NPCs and townspeople will have to be edited manually; I'm afraid there's no "default replacement of X" like the historical mods for TS2 where Mrs. Crumplebottom could be turned into a nun or the Pollination Technicians into faeries. (NRAAS Master Controller, custom clothes, and a lot of patience are your friends here.)

Declarations-of-Dramas had a guide on making the Sims more medieval on Tumblr, but that was eaten in the great purge of 2018; I have a downloaded copy but I'm not sure if it would be okay for me to post it here. (It is a lot of work! But as someone who prefers historical gameplay, it's worth the effort. You just have to grin and bear it.)

ETA: Some more recently updated Sims 3 historical content lists can be found at pis3update.tumblr.com, at fancifults3cc.tumblr.com, and (not to toot my own horn) on my historical CC sideblogs: https://windermeresimblr.tumblr.com/themed-cc-sideblogs .

Totally would be cool with that - or go ahead and post it on your own Tumblr with a link!

Also, it wasn't a purge - I purposefully deleted my account. Regret it big time now, but hey-ho. I'm back again :D