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Dwight, Illinois

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1948 and the latest in 1991. It stands in Dwight Township. It lies in ZIP code area 60420. The Survey maps it on the Dwight quadrangle. 4,032 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 630 feet above sea level.

Dwight within Livingston County

On record in Dwight

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 4 records

Population over time

2 figures

Dwight fell from 4,260 to 4,032 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
20104,260
20204,032-228 (-5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 10 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

8,642 words on this township

The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878 names this settlement in its chapter on Dwight Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Dwight is situated on the main line of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, at the junction of its Western Division, and is about seventy miles from Chicago, and twenty miles from Pontiac, the county seat. It is a place of about 2,000 inhabitants, is the third in size, and one of the most important shipping points in the county. The repair shops and the round house of the Western Division of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad are located here, as well as the headquarters of the bridge builders of the main line. The tank men were stationed here until recently, when they removed their headquarters to Bloomington. A large number of men employed by the two roads live in the village of D wight, and have all their interests centering here.

Passage source: The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878.

It was surveyed by Nelson Buck, Deputy County Surveyor, for Amos Edwards, the regular Surveyor of the county, in the Fall of 1853, for R. P. Morgan, Jr., Jas. C. Spencer, John Lathrop and J. and K. W. Fell, who owned the land on which it stands. The original town embraced the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 4 ; also the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter, and the northeast quarter of the northwest (quarter of Section 9, Township 30 north, Range 7 east of the Third Principal Meridian, and on the 30th day of January, 1854, was dedicated by Mr. Morgan, and the plat admitted to record. The following are his dedicator^/ words : " To be known as the town of Dwight, and the streets and alleys described on the town plat are hereby donated to the public." It was named for Henry Dwight, of New York, who was a capitalist, and furnished the money to build the road from Joliet to Bloomington, known now as the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad. He is said to have lost a fortune in the construction of this road ; and as a compliment to him, and in honor of his noble deeds, his name was given to the new village, which, in spite of efforts to change it, it has ever since borne. A " quill " of the time thus poetized :

Passage source: The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878.

The first house or cabin in the village of Dwight was built by a man fi-om Morris, whose name is now forgotten. It was a frame building, 16x24 feet, one and a half stories high, erected on Lot 8, Block 18, in 1853. and was built originally for a store or a kind of supply depot for the railroad hands, and finally passed into the possession of Dr. Haggerty, whose family still own it.

Passage source: The History of Livingston County, Illinois : Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, &c. .., published 1878.

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 Dwight Township - it names this place 25 more 25 times.

Fires near this place

36 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 36 fires within 5 miles of Dwight between 2003 and 2005, burning about 45 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 were 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/undetermined28
Arson/incendiarism3
Recreation and ceremony2
Debris and open burning2
Equipment and vehicle use1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
9 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
24 September 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
17 September 2003Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
11 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
11 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
8 July 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
8 July 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
7 July 2004Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Livingston County

Storms near this place

32 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Dwight in 32 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 16 thunderstorm wind, 11 hail, 3 flood, 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
June 1998FloodDwight$250,000Thunderstorms dumped 4 to 6 inches of rain in northeast Livingston County. A cooperative observer at Dwight measured 4.75 inches. Numerous roads, yards and basements were flooded. A car dealership suffered about $250,000 in damages when the parking lot flooded. Gooseberry Creek and Brewster Creek flooded. Illinois Highway 47 was closed.
June 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight$10,000A large tree was snapped off a few feet above the ground. The tree landed on a house causing damage.
August 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight$3,000Trees, tree limbs and power lines were blown down between Dwight and Campus.
May 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight$500Shingles were blown off a house and small tree limbs were blown down.
May 2025Thunderstorm WindDwight-Large tree limbs were snapped off of trees.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindDwight-A photo showed a large tree limb that was snapped.
August 2022Thunderstorm WindDwight-Small tree limbs were blown down.
August 2020Thunderstorm WindDwight-Numerous metal farm buildings were damaged including roofs and metal siding blown off. A large tree was snapped and fell onto a house.
June 2020Thunderstorm WindDwight-At least two semi trucks were blown over just west of Dwight.
August 2014FloodDwight-Street flooding up to two feet deep was reported in Dwight.
January 2008HailDwight-Penny size hail was reported at Gardner Road and Route 47.
January 2008Thunderstorm WindDwight-Wind gusts were estimated to 60 mph at Gardner Road and Route 47.
May 2006FloodDwight-Six to twelve inches of water over roads.
October 2006Thunderstorm WindDwight-A farm grain wagon was blown over.
March 2005HailDwight-Penny sized hail was reported at the intersection of Rt. 17 and I-55.
May 2004HailDwight-Nickel to golf ball size hail was reported.
May 2004Flash FloodDwight-Roads were closed due to flooding.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindDwight-Trees were blown down in the road causing traffic problems.
May 2004Tornado (F0)Dwight-An experienced storm spotter and chaser reported a tornado 6 miles southwest of Dwight. Trees were damaged in this area. It had a brief narrow path.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindDwight-Trees were blown down on Route 17.
April 2023HailDwight-no account filed
June 2015HailDwight-no account filed
April 2014HailDwight-no account filed
May 2012HailDwight-no account filed
May 2006HailDwight-no account filed
September 2005HailDwight-no account filed
April 2003Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
May 2000Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
May 1999Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
May 1998HailDwight-no account filed
January 1996Thunderstorm WindDwight-no account filed
April 1994HailDwight-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Livingston 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
Sunbury5.5 miles8
Blair6.2 miles10
Nevada6.7 miles8
Cardiff7.9 miles10
Campus8.0 miles10
Loretto8.1 miles13
Odell8.2 miles8
Adams (historical)8.5 miles8

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 DwightAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2338703The 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 407550. 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.