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Roodhouse, Illinois

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1924 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Roodhouse Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62082. The Survey maps it on the Roodhouse East quadrangle. 1,578 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 653 feet above sea level.

Roodhouse within Greene County

On record in Roodhouse

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Roodhouse fell from 1,814 to 1,578 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
20101,814
20201,578-236 (-13%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 12 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 Roodhouse township. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From 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 - Roodhouse Township

Wolf Scalps

Any person claiming a bounty shall produce the scalp or scalps with the ears thereon, within sixty days after the wolf or wolves shall have been caught, to the Clerk of the County Board, who shall administer to said person the following oath or aflBrmation, to-wit: "You do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be), that the scalp or scalps here produced by you was taken from a wolf or wolves killed and first captured by yourself within the limits of this county, and within the sixty dayslast past."

Read the rest of this passage

In the county-history sources

85,575 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 Roodhouse Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Shabbona had a reservation of two sections of land at his Grove, but by leaving it and going west for a short time, the Government declared the reservation forfeited, and sold it the same as other vacant land. On Shabbona's return, and finding his possessions gone, he was very sad and broken down in spirit, and left the Grove for ever. The citizens of Ottawa raised money and bought him a tract of land on the Illinois River, above Seneca, in Grundy County, on which they built a house, and supplied him with means to live on. He lived here until his death, which occurred on the 17th of July, 1859, in tlie eighty-fourth year of his age, and was buried with great pomp in the cemetery at Morris. His squaw, Pokanoka, was drowned in Mazen Creek, Grundy County, on the 30th of November, 1864, and was buried by his side.

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 legal rate of interest is six per cent. Parties may agree in ivriting on a rate not exceeding ten per cent. If a rate of interest greater than ten per cent, is contracted for, it works a forfeiture of the whole of said interest, and only the principal can be recovered.

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.

Second. Where there is no child, nor descendant of such child, and no widow or surviving husband, then to the parents, brothers and sisters of the deceased, and their descendants, in equal parts, the surviving parent, if either be dead, taking a double portion ; and if there is no parent living, then to the brothers and sisters of the intestate and their descendants.

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.

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 Roodhouse Township - it names this place 86 more 86 times.

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Roodhouse: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Clay. 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
Purington Clay Shale PitClayPast Producer

Every working recorded in Greene County

Storms near this place

21 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Roodhouse in 21 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 13 thunderstorm wind, 7 hail, 1 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
June 1994Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse$500A second thunderstorm knocked power lines and poles down and produced pea-size hail. Reported by a local newspaper.
July 1995TornadoRoodhouse$200A slow moving tornado touched down between Roodhouse and White Hall. It remained on the ground for about 10 minutes and damaged crops in fields along Highway 267.
May 2024HailRoodhouse-A photo on Twitter showed a measured golf ball sized hailstone.
May 2020Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-Thunderstorm winds caused minor roof damage to a residence about 2 miles northeast of Roodhouse.
July 2008Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-Numerous tree limbs and a couple of power lines were blown down in Roodhouse and areas just to the east of Roodhouse.
August 2007Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-Numerous tree limbs were blown down and some corn was flattened in several fields. One house east of Roodhouse had a few shingles blown off its roof.
July 2006Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-Thunderstorm winds blew a fire truck of the road 2 miles east of Roodhouse. No injuries were reported.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-Local law enforcement reported power lines down in Roodhouse.
April 2003HailRoodhouse-The County Sheriff reported 3/4 inch hail.
September 2000Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-Roodhouse Police reported trees and power lines down.
June 1994HailRoodhouse-The Roodhouse Police Department reported hail the size of half dollars.
March 2017Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-no account filed
April 2011Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-no account filed
April 2011HailRoodhouse-no account filed
January 2008HailRoodhouse-no account filed
January 2008Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-no account filed
April 2006HailRoodhouse-no account filed
May 2003Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-no account filed
April 2002HailRoodhouse-no account filed
August 1999Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-no account filed
June 1999Thunderstorm WindRoodhouse-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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Barrow2.2 miles12
White Hall3.6 miles12
Hanks Station5.5 miles12
Patterson5.9 miles12
Belltown7.3 miles12
McClay Orchard8.2 miles12
Berdan8.3 miles12
Wrights8.5 miles12

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 RoodhouseAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q577382The 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 416907. 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.

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.