BlockBefore

Brocton, Illinois

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1946 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Embarrass Township. It lies in ZIP code area 61917. The Survey maps it on the Brocton quadrangle. 273 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 663 feet above sea level.

Brocton within Edgar County

Population over time

2 figures

Brocton fell from 322 to 273 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.

YearPeople Change
2010322
2020273-49 (-15%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 15 printed sheets

Matched 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.

In the county-history sources

8,140 words on this township

The History of Edgar County, Illinois, Containing a History of the County--its Cities, Towns, &c. : Directory of Its Tax-payers; War Records of Its Volunteers in the Late Rebellion Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; General and Local Statistics; Map of Edgar County; History of Illinois, Illustrated; History of the Northwest, Illustrated; Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Matters, &c., &c. Illustrated, published 1879 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Embarrass Township covers the township.

Read the chapter on Embarrass Township - 8,140 words.

Storms near this place

16 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Brocton in 16 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 9 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 tornado, 1 flash 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2008Thunderstorm WindBrocton$30,000Several trees were blown down. Falling tree limbs cuased damage to a few vehicles in Brocton.
July 2016Thunderstorm WindBrocton$20,000A TV antenna tower was blown down. Roof shingles were stripped off a building and several tree branches were blown down.
March 2025Thunderstorm WindBrocton-A tree was blown down.
March 2023Thunderstorm WindBrocton-Powerlines were blown onto a motor home and pickup truck along Route 49 south of US-36.
June 2023Thunderstorm WindBrocton-Trees were blown down.
March 2022Thunderstorm WindBrocton-An anchored swing set was blown about 50ft.
August 2022Thunderstorm WindBrocton-Numerous tree branches were blown down.
May 2016HailBrocton-The hailstones were oblong shaped and jagged.
June 2010Flash FloodBrocton-Nearly 2.00 of rain in one hour produced flash flooding in parts of east central Edgar County from the late afternoon into early evening. Numerous streets were impassable in the city of Paris, as were rural roads west of the city.
June 1999Thunderstorm WindBrocton-As storms moved across Edgar County, numerous tree limbs were blown down. One tree was blown down 5 miles south of Paris on Route 1 and another one was blown down on US Route 150 just east of Paris. No injuries were reported.
April 1998Tornado (F0)Brocton-A tornado briefly touched down 4 miles north of Brocton. A shed was destroyed and 7 utility poles were either bent or snapped off completely. No injuries were reported and no damage estimate was available.
August 2014HailBrocton-no account filed
August 2014HailBrocton-no account filed
May 2014HailBrocton-no account filed
May 2005HailBrocton-no account filed
April 1996Thunderstorm WindBrocton-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Edgar County

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 PlaceDistance Sheets
Catfish (historical)3.0 miles15
Borton4.1 miles15
Isabel4.3 miles15
Hughes4.6 miles14
New Athens (historical)4.8 miles15
Melwood4.8 miles14
McCown5.8 miles14
Redmon6.1 miles15

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 BroctonAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2077348The 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 404897. 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.