Elkhart, Iowa
11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1911 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Elkhart Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50073. It stands on Coon Creek. The Survey maps it on the Elkhart quadrangle. 882 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 978 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresElkhart grew from 683 to 882 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 | 683 | |
| 2020 | 882 | +199 (+29%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 11 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.
- 1911 USGS Slater quadrangle1:62500
- 1913 USGS Slater quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1954 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000
- 1969 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:250000
- 1972 USGS Elkhart quadrangle1:24000
- 1984 USGS Des Moines quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
17 since 2009Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 17 fires within 5 miles of Elkhart between 2009 and 2018, burning about 884 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 | 9 |
| Debris and open burning | 6 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Smoking | 1 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 August 2012 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 April 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.5 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 6 April 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | 16110 NE 68TH ST., IA |
| 28 April 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 11 April 2014 | Debris and open burning | 100 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 10 April 2014 | Smoking | 17 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 30 March 2014 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 28 March 2015 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
26 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Elkhart in 26 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 8 thunderstorm wind, 6 hail, 6 flash flood, 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2018 | Flash Flood | Elkhart | 1 killed, $1,000,000 | Emergency manager reported multiple water rescues across Ankeny, Johnston, Des Moines and Urbandale. Vehicles were stalled out in street flooding with water half way up the doors of some cars. |
| June 2018 | Flash Flood | Elkhart | $250,000 | Public reported that Delaware Ave was under water north of NE 36th St in Ankeny. |
| June 2018 | Flash Flood | Elkhart | $250,000 | Public reported multiple vehicles stalled along Delaware Ave in Ankeny. |
| June 2018 | Flash Flood | Elkhart | $250,000 | Public relayed a picture of flooding along Fourmile Creek. |
| August 2010 | Flash Flood | Elkhart | $50,000 | At least 6 inches of water running across Interstate 35 at mile post 97. Multiple cars spun out. |
| September 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | $50,000 | no account filed |
| July 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | $50,000 | no account filed |
| July 2024 | Lightning | Elkhart | $20,000 | Emergency management confirmed report of lightning strike at a house/barn located near Elkhart, which caused a fire. |
| July 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | $10,000 | Several power poles were blown down. |
| September 2005 | Hail | Elkhart | $10,000 | no account filed |
| September 2004 | Tornado (F0) | Elkhart | $5,000 | Tornado made a brief touchtown in open country. |
| June 2011 | Hail | Elkhart | $3,000 | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Elkhart | $3,000 | no account filed |
| September 2002 | Hail | Elkhart | $3,000 | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | $2,000 | no account filed |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | - | Social media report of a wind gust measured at 67 mph. |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | - | Peak wind gust from the RWIS mesonet station RAKI4 Ankeny. |
| August 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | - | Mesonet station reported a 74 kts wind gust. |
| August 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Elkhart | - | Mesonet station reported a 60 knot wind gust. |
| May 2019 | Heavy Rain | Elkhart | - | CoCoRaHS observer recorded heavy rainfall of 2.23 inches over the last 24 hours. |
| July 2018 | Flash Flood | Elkhart | - | Emergency manager reported multiple water rescues across Ankeny, Johnston, Des Moines and Urbandale. Vehicles were stalled out in street flooding with water half way up the doors of some cars. Flooded roadways were observed through the night across the Des Moines metro area from the heavy rain on the evening of 30 June 2018. |
| July 2018 | Flood | Elkhart | - | Low lying areas still flooded across portions of the county along with water over some secondary roads and over parts of Hwy 17 near Granger. Water damage was estimated to have affected over 4,700 structures throughout the county, of those 4,700+ structures, over 200 structures had major damage or were destroyed. Flooding resulted in at least 15 road extended road closures throughout the county. Several trails, campgrounds and parks were closed due to flooding as well. |
| July 2018 | Heavy Rain | Elkhart | - | Trained spotter reported heavy rainfall of 6.92 inches. Due to reporting database limitation, this report is coded for midnight CST. Estimated start time was 6pm CDT June 30th, ending 1242am CDT July 1st. |
| July 2018 | Heavy Rain | Elkhart | - | CoCoRaHS observer recorded heavy rainfall of 7.15 inches over the last 24 hours. Due to database entry limitation, beginning time coded as midnight CST. |
| August 2018 | Hail | Elkhart | - | no account filed |
| May 1997 | Hail | Elkhart | - | 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.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 4.1 miles | 16 | |
| Quilhart (historical) | 5.1 miles | 16 | |
| Alleman | 5.1 miles | 11 | |
| Loring | 5.5 miles | 8 | |
| Ankeny | 6.2 miles | 16 | |
| Bondurant | 7.0 miles | 12 | |
| Oralabor | 7.2 miles | 16 | |
| Crocker | 7.9 miles | 12 |
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 Elkhart | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1914696 | 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 456304. 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.







