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Oakford, Illinois

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1933 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Oakford No. 9 precinct. It lies in ZIP code area 62673. It lies near Mott Hollow. The Survey maps it on the Oakford quadrangle. 234 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 491 feet above sea level.

Oakford within Menard County

Population over time

2 figures

Oakford fell from 286 to 234 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
2010286
2020234-52 (-18%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 13 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

2 since 2013

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Oakford between 2013 and 2015, burning about 10 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
Equipment and vehicle use1
Debris and open burning1

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
26 September 2013Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources2013-000005
30 March 2015Debris and open burning10 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources2015-000064

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Menard County

Storms near this place

19 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Oakford in 19 storm reports between 1994 and 2017: 10 thunderstorm wind, 7 hail, 1 flash flood, 1 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 2008Thunderstorm WindOakford$40,000Numerous trees, power lines, and power poles were blown down across Menard County. A concentrated area of 17 power poles was blown down on Route 29 just north of Greenview.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindOakford$15,000A tree was blown down onto a car in Oakford.
July 2010Thunderstorm WindOakford$8,000Four to five inch diameter branches and a few light poles were blown down.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindOakford$1,000A window was blown out of a house on Lincoln Trail Road.
April 2017Flash FloodOakford-Rain amounts of 2.50 to 4.00 inches in about a two hour period during the evening hours, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across much of Menard County. Numerous streets in Petersburg were impassable, as were numerous rural roads and highways in the county. Illinois Route 97 between Lincoln's New Salem site and Petersburg was closed due to high water.
April 2017FloodOakford-Rain amounts of 2.50 to 4.00 inches in about a two hour period during the evening hours, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across much of Menard County. Numerous streets in Petersburg were impassable, as were numerous rural roads and highways in the county. Illinois Route 97 between Lincoln's New Salem site and Petersburg was closed due to high water. Additional rain of 0.50 to 1.00 inch during the early morning hours kept many roads flooded. Flood waters subsided by mid-morning on the 30th.
November 2005Thunderstorm WindOakford-Power lines blown down.
August 2004Thunderstorm WindOakford-Two large trees were blown down.
April 2003Thunderstorm WindOakford-Thunderstorm winds blew a car off the road. No injuries were reported. Also, a utility pole was snapped off 3 miles north of Greenview.
May 1998Thunderstorm WindOakford-Thunderstorm winds blew down a large tree onto Hwy 97 three miles south of Petersburg. Also, numerous tree limbs were blown down. No injuries or structural damage were reported.
July 1994Thunderstorm WindOakford-Thunderstorm winds were estimated around 70 mph in Oakford by storm spotters. No damage has been reported. Several trees were blown down across a county road 7 W of Petersburg, near the Menard/Cass county line.
February 2017HailOakford-no account filed
June 2008HailOakford-no account filed
April 2006Thunderstorm WindOakford-no account filed
February 2003HailOakford-no account filed
April 2003HailOakford-no account filed
April 2003HailOakford-no account filed
April 2001HailOakford-no account filed
May 1998HailOakford-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Menard 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
Bobtown2.3 miles13
Atterberry3.6 miles13
Hilltop7.0 miles13
Petersburg8.7 miles13
Hill Top8.9 miles13
Curtis9.6 miles13
Lake Petersburg9.8 miles14
Old Salem Chautauqua10.2 miles14

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 OakfordAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2446959The 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 414883. 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.