Saint Elmo, Illinois
13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1941 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Avena Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62458. The Survey maps it on the Altamont West quadrangle. 1,254 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 614 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresSaint Elmo fell from 1,426 to 1,254 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 | 1,426 | |
| 2020 | 1,254 | -172 (-12%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 13 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1941 USGS St. Elmo quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1945 USGS St. Elmo quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1958 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1961 USGS Decatur quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1982 USGS Altamont West quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Effingham quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1998 USGS Altamont West quadrangle1:24000
Fires near this place
5 since 2004Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Saint Elmo in 2004, burning about 3 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 |
|---|---|
| Recreation and ceremony | 5 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 March 2004 | Recreation and ceremony | 1.5 acres | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 28 February 2004 | Recreation and ceremony | 1.0 acres | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 7 October 2004 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 1 October 2004 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 1 October 2004 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
2 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Saint Elmo: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Clay, Sulfur. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diller Tile Co Pit | Clay | Producer | ||
| St. Elmo Sulfur Plant | Sulfur | Producer |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Howards Point (historical) | 0.7 miles | 13 | |
| Pruett | 4.2 miles | 13 | |
| Avena | 4.4 miles | 13 | |
| Magnolia Corner | 4.6 miles | 13 | |
| Saint James | 5.0 miles | 11 | |
| Post Oak | 5.4 miles | 13 | |
| Brownstown | 6.0 miles | 11 | |
| Sefton | 6.4 miles | 13 |
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 Saint Elmo | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q575688 | 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 417268. 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.






