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Liberty, Illinois

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1925 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Liberty Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62347. The Survey maps it on the Liberty quadrangle. 543 people lived here at the 2020 count.

Liberty within Adams County

Population over time

2 figures

Liberty grew from 516 to 543 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
2010516
2020543+27 (+5%)

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.

Fires near this place

29 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 29 fires within 5 miles of Liberty between 2009 and 2016, burning about 155 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 5 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
Debris and open burning15
Missing data/not specified/undetermined7
Arson/incendiarism5
Natural1
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
13 September 2009Natural3.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesMORRISON
16 July 2010Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources10188
6 April 2011Debris and open burning1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1195
5 April 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1193
5 April 2010Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1083
4 April 2013Debris and open burning6.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesHENSON
27 April 2015Debris and open burning1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources4272015
11 April 2015Debris and open burning6.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources4112015

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Adams County

Storms near this place

28 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Liberty in 28 storm reports between 2003 and 2023: 13 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 4 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2007Thunderstorm WindLiberty$15,000Thunderstorm winds uprooted a couple of trees, broke large branches, and downed some power lines. Several windows at the elementary school were broken by flying debris.
March 2023HailLiberty$5,000Hail up to an inch in diameter caused minor damage to siding and window frames on a house.
May 2007Thunderstorm WindLiberty$1,000Thunderstorm winds blew the door off a barn, damaged a cattle gate, and scattered lawn ornaments at a farm northeast of Payson.
May 2007Thunderstorm WindLiberty$1,000Thunderstorm winds damaged a machine shed at a farm northeast of Payson.
May 2018Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Thunderstorm winds blew down a power line just north of Liberty.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindLiberty-An intense bow echo moved through the Liberty area. A barn lost part of its roof due to the thunderstorm winds.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Thunderstorm winds blew down several power lines.
August 2009Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Thunderstorm winds tore off part of the roof of a business's machine shed about 3 miles southeast of Quincy Regional Airport and threw the debris several hundred feet across Illinois Route 104.
December 2008Tornado (EF1)Liberty-A tornado touched down in an open field west of Illinois Route 104. It damaged several trees in this location. The tornado travelled to the east northeast. It damaged the roof of one home just east of Illinois Route 104. It then destroyed a large barn just south of County Road 1050N. The debris field extended for a mile to the north northeast of the barn.
December 2008Tornado (EF0)Liberty-A tornado touched down just west of County Road 2250th Street, north of N1025th Avenue. It damaged a machine shed and a mobile home in this location. It travelled to the northeast and caused some additional tree damage before lifting and dissipating.
July 2008Thunderstorm WindLiberty-A bus barn for the Liberty High School had its roof blown off. Three buses had minor damage and the metal roof sections were blown across the running track and a nearby road. Also, a power pole was snapped in half.
July 2008Thunderstorm WindLiberty-Thunderstorm winds caused the partial collapse of an old abandoned building on the south side of Liberty. Also, numerous tree limbs were blown down.
October 2007Thunderstorm WindLiberty-A couple of large trees were blown down in town. No structures were damaged.
September 2005Tornado (F1)Liberty-A tornado first formed in a valley east of Liberty and moved south crossing County Road 2675. The tornado dissipated near the intersection of County Road 2675 and 800. One machine shed was destroyed and several trees were damaged.
May 2003Tornado (F1)Liberty-The supercell storm that spawned tornadoes in Monroe, and Marion Counties of Missouri spawned a third tornado in east-central Adams County, Illinois. The tornado first formed approximately 2 miles north northeast of Liberty, Illinois and traveled northeast into northwest Brown County Illinois. A number of barns, machine sheds and large trees were damaged or destroyed in the path of the tornado over east central Adams county. The width of the damage area varied from 75 to as much as 150 yards and was rated F0 intensity during the early part of the path and F1 over the final 4 miles in far eastern Adams County.
April 2014HailLiberty-no account filed
May 2014HailLiberty-no account filed
May 2013HailLiberty-no account filed
July 2011HailLiberty-no account filed
May 2009HailLiberty-no account filed
August 2009HailLiberty-no account filed
January 2008HailLiberty-no account filed
July 2008HailLiberty-no account filed
June 2008Thunderstorm WindLiberty-no account filed
May 2007HailLiberty-no account filed
June 2007HailLiberty-no account filed
March 2006HailLiberty-no account filed
July 2006HailLiberty-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Adams 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
Richfield4.5 miles11
Adams4.9 miles11
Kingston6.1 miles11
Spring Valley6.9 miles11
Plainville7.7 miles11
Burton7.7 miles13
Columbus7.8 miles13
Chestline8.2 miles11

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 LibertyAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2488795The 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 411982. 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.