Clay City, Illinois

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1948 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Clay City Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62824. The Survey maps it on the Clay City quadrangle. 847 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 433 feet above sea level.

Clay City within Clay County

Population over time

2 figures

Clay City fell from 959 to 847 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	959
2020	847	-112 (-12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 11 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.

1948 USGS Flora quadrangle1:62500
1949 USGS Flora quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
1958 USGS Belleville quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1962 USGS Belleville quadrangle1:250000
1970 USGS Clay City quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
1986 USGS Olney quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

Storms near this place

28 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Clay City in 28 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 13 thunderstorm wind, 9 hail, 3 tornado, 3 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2011	Tornado (EF1)	Clay City	$510,000	A tornado developed about 1 mile southwest of Clay City. The tornado tracked northeast and dissipated near Clay City High School. Structures damaged along the path of the tornado included a barn and several garages, and 15 homes sustained minor to moderate roof damage. One concrete block storage building collapsed. Numerous trees were also damaged.
April 1998	Tornado (F2)	Clay City	$100,000	no account filed
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$60,000	Numerous trees, tree branches, and power lines were blown down in Clay City.
April 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$35,000	A tree was blown down onto a trailer.
August 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$30,000	Numerous trees and tree branches were blown down in Clay City.
May 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$21,000	A tree was blown onto a car.
August 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$20,000	The roof of a building was blown off at the corner of 5th and Walnut Street in Clay City. The roof of a trailer was also blown off, and a tree was knocked down onto a house.
August 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$18,000	Several trees and tree limbs were blown down. Power lines were also knocked down.
April 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$5,000	Large trees were blown down in Flora. A storage building was blown over in Clay City and large trees were blown down. A funnel cloud was reported near Sailor Springs.
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	$1,000	A tree was blown down across Main Street in Clay City.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	-	A large tree limb was blown down.
August 2023	Flash Flood	Clay City	-	Water was flowing across Main Street in Clay City.
June 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	-	Several trees and power lines were blown down just north of Clay City and on the outskirts of town.
June 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	-	A semi truck was blown over on Dieterich Blacktop just north of Clay City.
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	-	Numerous trees were blown down along Route 50 from 2 miles east of Clay City to the Richland County line.
January 2005	Flash Flood	Clay City	-	CO-OP Observer reported water flowing across Wilcox Road.
May 2004	Tornado (F0)	Clay City	-	A tornado briefly touched down on the south side of town causing damage to a few buildings, as well as blowing down trees and power lines. No injuries were reported.
June 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Clay City	-	Thunderstorm winds blew down two large trees and numerous tree limbs 6 miles south southeast of Clay City. No injuries were reported and no damage estimate was available.
June 2023	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
April 2012	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
April 2011	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
June 2011	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
April 2005	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
May 2005	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
April 2002	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed
July 1999	Flash Flood	Clay City	-	no account filed
October 1993	Hail	Clay City	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clay 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Maysville	0.7 miles	11
Camp Travis	2.3 miles	11
Sailor Springs	5.2 miles	9
Flora	7.1 miles	10
Hoosier	9.6 miles	9
Louisville	9.8 miles	9
Ingraham	10.2 miles	9
Wendelin	10.9 miles	9

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 Clay City	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q602281	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 406184. 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.