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Topeka, Illinois

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1929 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Quiver Township. It lies in ZIP code area 61567. The Survey maps it on the Topeka quadrangle. 60 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 473 feet above sea level.

Topeka within Mason County

Population over time

2 figures

Topeka fell from 76 to 60 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
201076
202060-16 (-21%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 14 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

11 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 11 fires within 5 miles of Topeka between 2009 and 2019, burning about 16 acres in total. 1 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/undetermined5
Debris and open burning5
Natural1

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 2009Debris and open burning1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesTOPEKA
4 August 2009Naturalunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesPOLE
20 June 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1181710
20 June 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1181710
1 June 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1101701
1 June 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1101701
4 April 2009Debris and open burning1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry ResourcesSANDRIDGE
17 April 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreChautauqua National Wildlife RefugeFIRE 2

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Mason County

Storms near this place

1 since 2024

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Topeka in 1 storm report in 2024: 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
July 2024Thunderstorm WindTopeka-Trees blown down onto the road, blocking traffic between Goofy Ridge and Bishop.

Every storm recorded in Mason 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
Eckard3.1 miles14
Bishop3.2 miles14
Buzzville4.0 miles14
Goofy Ridge4.4 miles15
Baldwin Beach5.5 miles19
Poplar City5.7 miles13
Forest City6.1 miles14
Quiver Beach6.2 miles19

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 TopekaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2672132The 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 419782. 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.