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Prairie Grove, Illinois

17 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1926 and the latest in 1992. It stands in Nunda Township. It lies in ZIP code area 60012. The Survey maps it on the McHenry quadrangle. 1,963 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 751 feet above sea level.

Prairie Grove within McHenry County

Population over time

2 figures

Prairie Grove grew from 1,904 to 1,963 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
20101,904
20201,963+59 (+3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

10 surveys from 17 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Nunda township. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From History of McHenry County, Illinois : Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Towns : Educational, Religious, Civil, Military, and Political History : Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens, Also a Condensed History of Illinois .., published 1885 - Nunda Township

Wolf Scalps

A few years prior to 1850 the county gave a bounty of $15 for each wolf's scalp that had been taken within the limits of the county. This was a bonanza for the hunters, and not only was this county scoured in search of the valuable prey, but adjoining counties robbed of wolves, which were brought alive across the line into this county where they were killed and bounty claimed on the scalps.

Read the rest of this passage

In the county-history sources

24,929 words on this township

History of McHenry County, Illinois : Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Towns : Educational, Religious, Civil, Military, and Political History : Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens, Also a Condensed History of Illinois .., published 1885 names this settlement in its chapter on Nunda Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

W. 3. Mudgett was born in Nunda Township, on the farm he now owns, May 17, 1844, a son of J. H. and Polly Mudgett. He attended school till the breaking out of the war, and in the spring of 1861 enlisted in Company C, Thirty-seventh Illinois Infantry, as a private; was afterward promoted to Corporal. He participated in the battles of Sugar Creek, Prairie Grove, Pea Ridge, Vicksburg, Red River campaign, Mobile. He was mustered out June 20, 1866, having served five years and fifteen days. Since his return home he has followed farming, and now owns 190 acres of land. He was married Oct. 28, 1867, to Emma, daughter of John and Maria Claxton. They have three children - Earl, Minnie and Victor. Politically Mr. Mudgett is a National Greenbacker. He is a member of Wauconda Post, G A. R.

Passage source: History of McHenry County, Illinois : Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Towns : Educational, Religious, Civil, Military, and Political History : Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Representative Citizens, Also a Condensed History of Illinois .., published 1885.

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 Nunda Township.

Fires near this place

3 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Prairie Grove between 2009 and 2012, burning about 53 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Debris and open burning1
Smoking1

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
16 July 2012Smoking1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources12-01725
3 April 2012Debris and open burning49 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesDEFIANCW
17 February 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesD

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in McHenry County

Mines and quarries near this place

10 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 10 workings within 5 miles of Prairie Grove: 6 producers, 3 past producers, 1 plant. 7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Cary Plant & Portable MillSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Crystal Lake Sand & Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Frams Material Co. DredgeSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Green Valley East Gate PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Island Lake PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Possum Run Pit & MillSand and Gravel, ConstructionPlant
Raven PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Reiland Pit, DredgeSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Rocky Road PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Unnamed PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in McHenry County

Storms near this place

2 since 2017

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Prairie Grove in 2 storm reports between 2017 and 2021: 1 heavy rain, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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
August 2021Thunderstorm WindPrairie Grove-Parts of large trees were snapped off.
June 2017Heavy RainPrairie Grove-Heavy rainfall of 1.25 inches was measured in 30 minutes near Walkup and Crystal Springs Road.

Every storm recorded in McHenry 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
Barreville0.2 miles17
Colby Point1.7 miles23
Burtons Bridge1.7 miles23
Ferndale1.9 miles23
Holiday Hills2.1 miles23
Terra Cotta2.1 miles17
Oakwood Hills2.4 miles19
McHenry Shores2.8 miles17

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 Prairie GroveAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2257106The 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 1669476. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, 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.