Rockbridge, Illinois

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1932 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Rockbridge Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62081. It stands on Hodges Creek. The Survey maps it on the Greenfield quadrangle. 175 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 541 feet above sea level.

Rockbridge within Greene County

Population over time

2 figures

Rockbridge grew from 169 to 175 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	169
2020	175	+6 (+4%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 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.

1932 USGS Greenfield quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
1948 USGS Quincy quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1956 USGS Quincy quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1983 USGS Greenfield quadrangle1:24000
1985 USGS Jerseyville quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

In the county-history sources

4,242 words on this township

History of Greene County, Illinois : Its Past and Present, Containing a History of the County ; Its Cities, Towns, Etc. ; a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens ; War Record.., published 1879 names this settlement in its chapter on Rockbridge Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The town of Rockbridge is situated in the southeast part of the county, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, in what has long been known as Taylor's Prairie, having derived the name from John and Ambrose Taylor, who with Benjamin Allen settled here in the year 1819. They were the first white men who settled north of the Macoupin Creek in this part of the county.

Passage source: History of Greene County, Illinois : Its Past and Present, Containing a History of the County ; Its Cities, Towns, Etc. ; a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens ; War Record.., published 1879.

The first building that was put up was the mill on the creek, now known as the Rockbridge Mills. This was built about the year 1826 by John Hardcastle and Moses Stephens, and was run by water power. These parties sold out to a Mr. Tegard, he to Mr. Andrews, and in the year 1836 it came into the possession of John Barnett. In the year 1840, Mr. Barnett sold to George D. Randle, who improved it considerably. It was also under his influence in the year 1849, that a post-office was established here and called Rockbridge. Mr. Randle, who was postmaster, kept the office in his residence, a hewed log house, which still stands on the hill near the mill, a relic of the town in its infancy.

The mill was bought by William Gage, G. T. W. Sheffield and I. R. Ostrom, about the year 1853. It was this party who put in steam power and otherwise improved the mill. Mr. Gage also built a store house about this time, into which the post-office was removed. _ With these changes a lively business commenced at the town of Rockbridge.

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 Rockbridge Township - it names this place 6 more 6 times.

Storms near this place

4 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rockbridge in 4 storm reports between 2000 and 2011: 4 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
May 2004	Hail	Rockbridge	-	Storm spotters reported 1 inch hail.
May 2004	Hail	Rockbridge	-	The Sheriff Department reported 1 inch hail.
April 2000	Hail	Rockbridge	-	Law enforcement officials reported 1 inch hail.
May 2011	Hail	Rockbridge	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Greene 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
Fayette	4.4 miles	11
Kahm	5.0 miles	12
Greenfield	5.2 miles	11
Daum	7.1 miles	12
Jalapa	7.2 miles	12
Wrights	8.8 miles	12
Kane	9.6 miles	12
Mid City (historical)	10.4 miles	12

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 Rockbridge	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2634575	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 416840. 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.