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Forest City, Illinois

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1929 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Forest City Township. It lies in ZIP code area 61532. The Survey maps it on the Forest City quadrangle. 222 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 493 feet above sea level.

Forest City within Mason County

Population over time

2 figures

Forest City fell from 246 to 222 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
2010246
2020222-24 (-10%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 14 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.

Fires near this place

13 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 13 fires within 5 miles of Forest City between 2009 and 2018, burning about 389 acres 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
Debris and open burning6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined4
Equipment and vehicle use3

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
20 September 2018Equipment and vehicle use4.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources092-18
11 September 2013Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesSAND RIDGE
27 June 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1201711
27 June 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1201711
24 June 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1191710
24 June 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1191710
20 June 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1181710
1 June 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1101701

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Mason County

Storms near this place

16 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Forest City in 16 storm reports between 1994 and 2026: 13 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 hail. 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 2014Thunderstorm WindForest City$50,000A falling tree destroyed a motor home.
June 2014Thunderstorm WindForest City$45,000Numerous power lines were knocked down in Forest City.
May 2017Thunderstorm WindForest City$30,000Several trees were blown down.
May 2007Thunderstorm WindForest City$2,000Tree limbs and power lines were blown down. Several road construction signs were pulled out of the ground.|
July 1994Thunderstorm WindForest City$50Power lines were blown down.
March 2026Tornado (EF1)Forest City-A tornado touched down northeast of the intersection of County Road 2800 East and County Road 2000 North about 1 mile south-southeast of Forest City at 12:06 AM CDT March 11th. The tornado tracked northeastward, overturning several irrigation pivots and snapping trees along its path before crossing into southwestern Tazewell County south of the intersection of Jacobs Road and Nichols Road at 12:11 AM CDT.
May 2020Thunderstorm WindForest City-Several tree limbs were blown down and a patio railing was broken.
May 2019Thunderstorm WindForest City-Several trees were blown down along the Manito Blacktop between Manito and Forest City.
May 2011Thunderstorm WindForest City-Structural damage occurred to a popcorn factory south of Forest City.
May 2011Thunderstorm WindForest City-Several trees were blown down in Forest City.
October 2004Thunderstorm WindForest City-Large tree blown down.
May 2003Tornado (F1)Forest City-A tornado touched down west of Forest City (Mason County) and traveled east. On the south side of town, several homes sustained minor to major damage and a mobile home was destroyed. Also, some sheds and garages were destroyed. Numerous trees and power lines were blown down before it moved into Tazewell County. No injuries were reported.
June 2002Thunderstorm WindForest City-Two power poles were blown down across US Highway 136.
June 1998Thunderstorm WindForest City-Several power lines were blown down in Forest City.
May 1994Thunderstorm WindForest City-Two-foot diameter trees were uprooted.
February 2026HailForest City-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Mason 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
Union1.7 miles15
Bishop3.0 miles14
Manito4.6 miles15
Goofy Ridge6.1 miles15
Topeka6.1 miles14
Buzzville8.6 miles14
Eckard9.2 miles14
Easton9.5 miles13

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 Forest CityAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2237542The 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 408503. 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.