BlockAnchor, Illinois
11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1957 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Anchor Township. It lies in ZIP code area 61720. The Survey maps it on the Colfax quadrangle. 163 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 780 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresAnchor grew from 146 to 163 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 | 146 | |
| 2020 | 163 | +17 (+12%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 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.
- 1957 USGS Colfax quadrangle1:62500
- 1958 USGS Peoria quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1961 USGS Peoria quadrangle1:250000
- 1963 USGS Peoria quadrangle1:250000
- 1985 USGS Fairbury quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1986 USGS Colfax quadrangle1:24000
- 1990 USGS Peoria quadrangle1:250000
Storms near this place
9 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Anchor in 9 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 3 tornado, 2 hail, 2 flash flood, 1 flood. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2024 | Tornado (EF1) | Anchor | - | A tornado touched down just north of East 1900 North Road and west of North 4000 East Road at 8:45 PM CDT. The tornado tracked eastward, destroying a machine shed and throwing debris from the shed a half mile eastward before quickly dissipating at 8:46 PM CDT. |
| June 2024 | Tornado (EF1) | Anchor | - | A tornado touched down about 2 miles south of Anchor at 8:46 PM CDT. The tornado tracked southeastward, severely damaging or destroying several farm buildings. It then crossed into the National Weather Service Chicago County Warning Area (CWA) into western Ford County just north of East 1500 North Road at 8:50 PM CDT. |
| August 2021 | Flash Flood | Anchor | - | Several rural roads across far southeastern McLean County were nearly impassible due to high water. |
| July 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Anchor | - | A tree was blown across the road on the 500 block of 3rd Street in Anchor. |
| July 2014 | Flood | Anchor | - | Periods of thunderstorms with heavy rainfall produced rain rates of 1 to 2.5 inches for at least two hours from 0630-0830 LST in extreme southeast McLean County. The highest rain totals ranged between 6.00 to 7.00 inches from the town of Bellflower, southeast to the Piatt County line. Nearly all rural roads in southeast McLean County were flooded with at least a foot of water. Illinois Route 54 and a 7 mile stretch of U.S. Highway 136 near Bellflower were closed due to flooding. Periods of additional rainfall in the early afternoon kept area roads closed through the late evening hours. |
| July 2014 | Flash Flood | Anchor | - | Periods of thunderstorms with heavy rainfall produced rain rates of 1 to 2.5 inches for at least two hours from 0630-0830 LST in extreme southeast McLean County. The highest rain totals ranged between 6.00 to 7.00 inches from the town of Bellflower, southeast to the Piatt County line. Nearly all rural roads in southeast McLean County were flooded with at least a foot of water. Illinois Route 54 and a 7 mile stretch of U.S. Highway 136 near Bellflower were closed due to flooding. |
| June 1999 | Tornado (F0) | Anchor | - | A tornado touched down briefly several times from 2 miles north of Anchor to half a mile north of Cropsey. No damage was reported. |
| April 2004 | Hail | Anchor | - | no account filed |
| April 1994 | Hail | Anchor | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cropsey | 4.1 miles | 14 | |
| Colfax | 4.3 miles | 11 | |
| Arrowsmith | 9.6 miles | 12 | |
| Cooksville | 9.7 miles | 11 | |
| Saybrook | 9.8 miles | 12 | |
| Pleasant Hill | 11.6 miles | 11 | |
| Ellsworth | 12.6 miles | 12 | |
| Weston | 13.2 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 Anchor | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2671750 | 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 403493. 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.
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.