Curran, Illinois
12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1924 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Curran Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62670. The Survey maps it on the Loami quadrangle. 213 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 623 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresCurran grew from 212 to 213 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 | 212 | |
| 2020 | 213 | +1 (+0%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 12 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.
- 1924 USGS Waverly quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1926 USGS Waverly quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1961 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1981 USGS Loami quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Springfield quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
In the county-history sources
8,409 words on this townshipHistory of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881 names this settlement in its chapter on Curran Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
The first settlement was made in this township in 1819. Among the early settlers were Joshua Brown, Jacob Earnest, Thomas Earnest, William Archer, David Cloyd, Thomas Cloyd, Samuel Cloyd, Stephen Shelton, William T. Brawnes, Ivins Fostei*, James Parkinson, John Smith, Thomas McKee, Elisha McKomas, Mr. Lamb, John Kelly, James McKee, Barney Vanderen, Henry Alsbury, Thomas Hilliard, Thomas Foster, William Withrow, and others.
Passage source: History of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881.
Joshua Brown was born May 20, 1V92, in Davis county, Kentucky. Nancy Wilcher was born December, 1789, in the same county. They were there married, early in 1812, and in November, 1818, moved to St.^ Clair county, Illinois, and from there to what became Sangamon county, arriving April 18, 1819, in what is now Curran township, east of Archer's creek, and south of Spring creek, and later, entered one hundred and sixty acres of land south of Spring creek, in Gardner township.
Passage source: History of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881.
Jacob Earnest was born April 24, 1799, in South Carolina, was married there to Elizabeth Sims, who was born April 26, 1798. She was a sister of James and William Sims, one of whom was older and the other younger than herself. They moved to that part of Simpson which later became Logan county, Kentucky. In 1817, the family moved to St. Clair county, Illinois, and they moved to what became Sangamon county, Illinois, arriving in the fail of 1819, on Spring creek, in what is now Curran township,
Passage source: History of Sangamon County, Illinois; Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Townships ... Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens. History of Illinois, published 1881.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Read the whole chapter on Curran Township - it names this place 39 more 39 times.
Fires near this place
3 since 2010Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Curran between 2010 and 2014, burning about 1 acre 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 | 2 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 April 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Illinois Division of Forestry Resources | OSWOLD |
| 29 January 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Illinois Division of Forestry Resources | FRAASE |
| 28 January 2014 | Smoking | under an acre | Illinois Division of Forestry Resources | 2014-02 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
12 since 2005Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Curran in 12 storm reports between 2005 and 2025: 6 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Curran | $40,000 | Several carports and tops of mobile homes were damaged near the intersection of I-72 and Wabash Avenue. |
| May 2025 | Hail | Curran | - | Nickel-sized hail fell near the Wabash Avenue exit on I-72. |
| June 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Curran | - | A power line was knocked down just south of Curran. |
| June 2023 | Tornado (EF2) | Curran | - | A tornado touched down near the intersection of Curran Road and Spaulding Orchard Road about 1 mile south of Curran at 12:12 PM CDT. It removed large sections of the roof of a home, then continued to track southeastward into the town of Chatham where it blew down numerous trees, tree branches, and power lines. The tornado also ripped approximately half the roof off a home in Chatham. It downed several large trees and tore shingles off homes in a subdivision just southeast of Chatham before crossing I-55 and dissipating about 2 miles north-northeast of Glenarm at 12:19 PM CDT. |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Curran | - | Several power lines were blown down. |
| June 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Curran | - | A tree was broken off about 4 feet above ground. |
| August 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Curran | - | Numerous trees, tree limbs, power lines and a corn field were blown down. The storms also blew down several tents at the state fairgrounds. No injuries were reported. Hail to one inch in diameter was also reported as the storms moved through. |
| May 2025 | Hail | Curran | - | no account filed |
| May 2025 | Hail | Curran | - | no account filed |
| May 2025 | Hail | Curran | - | no account filed |
| May 2025 | Hail | Curran | - | no account filed |
| July 2023 | Hail | Curran | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knapp | 3.0 miles | 12 | |
| Riddle Hill | 3.1 miles | 14 | |
| Cody | 3.2 miles | 19 | |
| Archer | 3.3 miles | 19 | |
| Sudduth (historical) | 3.5 miles | 12 | |
| Pasfield | 3.9 miles | 14 | |
| Bates | 4.3 miles | 12 | |
| Coleman | 4.7 miles | 19 |
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 Curran | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q5194955 | 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 406902. 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.





