Gays, Illinois

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1934 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Whitley Township. It lies in ZIP code area 61928. The Survey maps it on the Mattoon West quadrangle. 218 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 753 feet above sea level.

Gays within Moultrie County

Population over time

2 figures

Gays fell from 281 to 218 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	281
2020	218	-63 (-22%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 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.

1934 USGS Mattoon quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
1937 USGS Mattoon quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
1958 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1961 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1984 USGS Mattoon West quadrangle1:24000
1986 USGS Effingham quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1998 USGS Mattoon West quadrangle1:24000

Storms near this place

8 since 2012

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Gays in 8 storm reports between 2012 and 2021: 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 2 flood, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
December 2015	Flood	Gays	$500,000	An extended period of heavy rain during the late evening of December 26th in Moultrie County combined with an already saturated ground to produce flash flooding. Rainfall amounts ranged from 4.00 to 5.50 inches in less than six hours. Most rural roads and state highways were flooded and impassable. Bethany, Lovington and Sullivan were the most impacted with city streets inundated and basements flooded. The flooding continued through all of December 27th. Additional rainfall of 1.50 to 2.00 from December 28th into the 29th aggravated the flooding situation significantly. Every rural road and most state highways were flooded for nearly four days. The flood water finally subsided by the afternoon of December 31st.
August 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Gays	$25,000	A gabled roof of a church was torn off. Numerous trees and tree branches were blown down across town.
August 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Gays	$24,000	Several trees were blown down about 1 mile east of Gays.
December 2021	Tornado (EF2)	Gays	-	This tornado crossed from Shelby County into southern Moultrie County about 1 mile southwest of Gays at 9:54 PM CST. An agriculture services plant was significantly damaged west of Gays, with numerous buildings destroyed and 3 large tanker trucks flipped. The tornado continued northeastward and crossed into western Coles County just south of Western Avenue at 9:58 PM CST.
June 2015	Flash Flood	Gays	-	Several periods of rainfall occurred as a result of the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill. Rainfall totals ranged from 3.00 to 6.00 on already saturated ground. Extensive flooding was reported on roads adjacent to Lake Shelbyville and the Shelby County line. Streets were also flooded in Sullivan and parts of Illinois Routes 121 and 32 in the southern half of the county were impassable.
June 2015	Flood	Gays	-	Several periods of rainfall occurred as a result of the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill. Rainfall totals ranged from 3.00 to 6.00 on already saturated ground. Extensive flooding was reported on roads adjacent to Lake Shelbyville and the Shelby County line. Streets were also flooded in Sullivan and parts of Illinois Routes 121 and 32 in the southern half of the county were impassable. The periods of rainfall persisted through all of June 19th and into June 20th. This caused roadways to remain flooded. The flooding subsided by the morning of June 20th.
December 2015	Flash Flood	Gays	-	An extended period of heavy rain during the late evening of December 26th in Moultrie County combined with an already saturated ground to produce flash flooding. Rainfall amounts ranged from 4.00 to 5.50 inches in less than six hours. Most rural roads and state highways were flooded and impassable. Bethany, Lovington and Sullivan were the most impacted with city streets inundated and basements flooded.
April 2016	Hail	Gays	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Moultrie 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
Bruce	6.8 miles	14
Allenville	7.0 miles	14
Fuller	9.5 miles	13
Sullivan	11.5 miles	14
Kirksville	12.1 miles	14
Chipps	12.9 miles	14
Cadwell	15.5 miles	14
Cushman	15.6 miles	14

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 Gays	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2671174	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 408934. 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.