Van Wert, Iowa
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1981. It stands in Long Creek Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50262. The Survey maps it on the Van Wert quadrangle. 178 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,161 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresVan Wert fell from 230 to 178 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 | 230 | |
| 2020 | 178 | -52 (-23%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 7 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.
- 1954 USGS Centerville quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Centerville quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Centerville quadrangle1:250000
- 1981 USGS Leon quadrangle1:100000
- 1981 USGS Van Wert quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
1 since 2018Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Van Wert in 2018, burning about 80 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 April 2018 | Debris and open burning | 80 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
2 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Van Wert: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dekalb Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Old Dekalb Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer |
Storms near this place
19 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Van Wert in 19 storm reports between 1996 and 2019: 9 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 1 flood, 1 heavy rain. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $150,000 | no account filed |
| May 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $100,000 | no account filed |
| May 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $50,000 | Trees were reported down on houses in town and power was out. Relayed by KCCI TV. |
| April 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $25,000 | A grain bin was blown across the road and large tree branches were downed. Siding was ripped off of a house. |
| July 2009 | Flood | Van Wert | $10,000 | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $5,000 | Few large 10 inch diameter tree limbs down. Wind gust estimated at 70 MPH. |
| May 2009 | Hail | Van Wert | $5,000 | Hail covered the ground. |
| June 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $5,000 | Power lines were downed near Van Wert. |
| June 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $5,000 | Power poles were leaning east of Weldon. |
| April 1999 | Hail | Van Wert | $5,000 | no account filed |
| July 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Van Wert | $5,000 | no account filed |
| March 2006 | Hail | Van Wert | $3,000 | no account filed |
| May 2013 | Hail | Van Wert | $1,000 | no account filed |
| July 1996 | Hail | Van Wert | $1,000 | no account filed |
| June 2019 | Hail | Van Wert | - | Trained spotter reported lots of quarter sized hail with a few to half dollar in size. Significant crop damage was noted to the north of this location with corn and bean fields decimated. Hail size that did damage to the fields was unknown. |
| June 2019 | Hail | Van Wert | - | Emergency manager reported swaths of stripped crops at the Clarke/Decatur county line. This is a delayed report and time estimated from radar. |
| July 2017 | Hail | Van Wert | - | Trained spotter reported dime to nickel sized hail and very heavy rainfall, including some ditches full. |
| August 2014 | Heavy Rain | Van Wert | - | Rainfall of 3.25 inches was measured in the past 24 hours. |
| June 2001 | Hail | Van Wert | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weldon | 3.6 miles | 7 | |
| Kingston | 4.4 miles | 7 | |
| Decatur | 9.1 miles | 10 | |
| Leon | 9.3 miles | 7 | |
| Grand River | 9.6 miles | 7 | |
| Garden Grove | 10.3 miles | 7 | |
| Le Roy | 10.6 miles | 7 | |
| Barrell (historical) | 12.5 miles | 10 |
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 Van Wert | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2239823 | 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 462538. 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.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.




