Benton, Iowa
13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1940 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Waubonsie Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50835. The Survey maps it on the Benton quadrangle. 39 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,083 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresBenton fell from 41 to 39 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 41 | |
| 2020 | 39 | -2 (-5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 13 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1940 USGS Blockton quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1943 USGS Blockton quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1955 USGS Nebraska City quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Nebraska City quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Nebraska City quadrangle1:250000
- 1981 USGS Benton quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Mount Ayr quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
2 since 2009Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Benton between 2009 and 2011, burning about 101 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 March 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 100 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | S END OF DNR MARSH BY BENTON, IA |
| 10 February 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
9 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Benton in 9 storm reports between 1995 and 2016: 5 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain. The reports record 1 death. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Benton | 1 killed | An adult male died when a 30 foot conveyor belt was blown over by a wind gust. The incident occurred at 2401 Co. Hwy P-27 at the Helena Chemical Company. |
| April 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Benton | $30,000 | A roof was blown off of a barn near 215th St and 190th Ave. Numerous tree limbs were down. |
| June 2010 | Hail | Benton | $10,000 | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Benton | $10,000 | no account filed |
| July 1995 | Hail | Benton | $3,000 | A warm front extended southeast to northwest to the southwest of Iowa. The air mass was very unstable to the southwest of the front with lifted indices in the -10° C range, but was capped. Thunderstorms fired on the cold side of the front. Favorable shear in the upper air wind fields allowed some of the storms to become severe. Most of the severe weather occurred south of Iowa, but one cell dropped three quarter to one inch diameter hail on Ringgold County before it moved southeast into Missouri. |
| July 1995 | Hail | Benton | $3,000 | A warm front extended southeast to northwest to the southwest of Iowa. The air mass was very unstable to the southwest of the front with lifted indices in the -10° C range, but was capped. Thunderstorms fired on the cold side of the front. Favorable shear in the upper air wind fields allowed some of the storms to become severe. Most of the severe weather occurred south of Iowa, but one cell dropped three quarter to one inch diameter hail on Ringgold County before it moved southeast into Missouri. |
| July 1995 | Hail | Benton | $1,000 | A warm front extended southeast to northwest to the southwest of Iowa. The air mass was very unstable to the southwest of the front with lifted indices in the -10° C range, but was capped. Thunderstorms fired on the cold side of the front. Favorable shear in the upper air wind fields allowed some of the storms to become severe. Most of the severe weather occurred south of Iowa, but one cell dropped three quarter to one inch diameter hail on Ringgold County before it moved southeast into Missouri. |
| August 2016 | Heavy Rain | Benton | - | Emergency manager received report of heavy rainfall of 5.6 inches storm total. Exact end time of report unknown. |
| April 2003 | Hail | Benton | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Benton | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1944889 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 454519. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.






