Wakefield, Illinois

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1941 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Denver Township. It lies in ZIP code area 62448. The Survey maps it on the Wakefield quadrangle. It stands 492 feet above sea level.

Wakefield within Richland County

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 10 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.

1941 USGS Newton quadrangle1:62500
1943 USGS Newton quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
1958 USGS Belleville quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1962 USGS Belleville quadrangle1:250000
1985 USGS Wakefield quadrangle1:24000
1986 USGS Olney quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

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 Wakefield: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
	Shoots Stone Quarry No. 2	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Richland County

Storms near this place

18 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wakefield in 18 storm reports between 2009 and 2022: 12 flash flood, 4 flood, 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 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 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Wakefield	$6,000	A power pole was blown down.
May 2019	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Nearly 2.00 inches of rain fell within an hour in the central part of Richland County between 0730 and 0830 AM CDT. This resulted in flash flooding from about Olney to Dundas. Due to recent heavy rainfall, roads flooded quickly because of ditches that were already full of water. The flooding subsided by early afternoon.
September 2018	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Several bands of rain associated with the remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon impacted Richland County from September 7th through the 8th. The ground was saturated with nearly 4.50 to 6.50 inches of rain when a particularly heavy band of rain moved into southeast Illinois during the afternoon of September 8th. An additional 2.00 inches of rain in less than three hours produced flash flooding in Richland County in the early afternoon. Many county roads were covered with water. Illinois Highway 250 was flooded near the Olney airport and near the high school.
May 2017	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Heavy rainfall of 1.00 to 2.00 inches during the early morning hours of May 4th, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across most Richland County. Officials reported that most rural roads were impassable, several streets in Olney were flooded, and numerous creeks rapidly flooded.
May 2017	Flood	Wakefield	-	Heavy rainfall of 1.00 to 2.00 inches during the early morning hours of May 4th, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across most Richland County. Officials reported that most rural roads were impassable, several streets in Olney were flooded, and numerous creeks rapidly flooded. Additional rainfall around 1.00 inch later in the day May 4th into May 5th caused creeks and roads to stay flooded for nearly 48 hours. Flood waters subsided by the afternoon on May 6th.
May 2017	Flood	Wakefield	-	Rain amounts of 2.50 to 3.50 inches in about a two hour period during the evening hours, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across most of Richland County. Several streets in the city of Olney were impassable. Numerous rural roads, highways and creeks in the county were flooded, particularly north of U.S. Highway 50. An additional 1.00 to 1.50 inches of rain occurred on April 30th, keeping many roads and creeks flooded. As a result, areal flooding continued until the late morning hours of May 1st.
May 2017	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	The third heavy rain event to occur in less than two weeks resulted in rapid flash flooding in northern Richland County. Rainfall amounts ranged from 2.00 to 2.50 inches during the late evening of May 10th in areas where ditches were already full of water and soils were saturated. Numerous rural roads were closed from Wakefield through Dundas to Olney. The heaviest rain occurred near Dundas, where IL Route 130 was closed.
May 2017	Flood	Wakefield	-	The third heavy rain event to occur in less than two weeks resulted in rapid flash flooding in northern Richland County. Rainfall amounts ranged from 2.00 to 2.50 inches during the late evening of May 10th in areas where ditches were already full of water and soils were saturated. Numerous rural roads were closed from Wakefield through Dundas to Olney. The heaviest rain occurred near Dundas, where IL Route 130 was closed. An additional 0.50 to 0.75 inch of rain during the early morning hours of May 11th kept flood waters from receding until early evening.
April 2017	Flood	Wakefield	-	Rain amounts of 2.50 to 3.50 inches in about a two hour period during the evening hours, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across most of Richland County. Several streets in the city of Olney were impassable. Numerous rural roads, highways and creeks in the county were flooded, particularly north of U.S. Highway 50. An additional 1.00 to 1.50 inches of rain occurred on April 30th, keeping many roads and creeks flooded. As a result, areal flooding continued until the late morning hours of May 1st.
April 2017	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Rain amounts of 2.50 to 3.50 inches in about a two hour period during the evening hours, on already saturated ground, resulted in flash flooding across most of Richland County. Several streets in the city of Olney were impassable. Numerous rural roads, highways and creeks in the county were flooded, particularly north of U.S. Highway 50.
July 2013	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Periods of heavy rain on already saturated ground produced flash flooding in most of Richland County. Observers reported 4.00 to 6.00 inches of rain from the morning into the early afternoon. Highway 130 from 4 miles north of Olney to Parkersburg was flooded. Numerous streets in the city of Olney were inundated and the Fox Creek was out of its banks. Most rural roads were impassable during the morning.
July 2013	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Thunderstorms with very heavy rain produced 2.00 to 3.00 inches of rainfall in less than two hours during the late afternoon. Flash flooding rapidly developed on rural roads in northern Richland County. The rain was relatively short lived, so the flash flooding quickly dissipated by early evening.
June 2013	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Slow moving thunderstorms produced 2 to 4 inches of rain in a two hour period during the late afternoon in Richland County. Many rural roads and creeks were flooded as a result. The worst flooding was around the village of Dundas, and along Illinois Route 130 from south of Olney to Parkersburg. The flooding quickly subsided by late evening.
June 2013	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Numerous thunderstorms produced 2.50 to 5.00 inches of rain on already saturated ground in Richland County. The worst flooding was in the northwest corner of the county near the town Wakefield, and the southern half of the county south of U.S. Highway 50. Nearly all rural roads in these areas were impassable, as was Illinois Route 130 between Olney and Parkersburg. The flooding on the roadways quickly subsided by late afternoon.
June 2011	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Thunderstorms during the late evening hours produced 2.50 to 4.00 of rain on extremely saturated ground and in locations which experienced flash flooding the previous week. This resulted in rapid flash flooding of creeks and roads across almost all of Richland County. Streets in Olney and Noble were flooded and U.S. Highway 50, Illinois Route 130 and Route 250 had standing water in spots. Nearly all rural roads were flooded and closed due to the flooding.
June 2011	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Thunderstorms produced 4.00 to 9.00 of rain in much of Richland County during the early morning hours of June 18th. U.S. Highway 50 was inundated in several locations, streets were flooded in a large part of Olney, and almost all rural roads were impassable due to the high water.
May 2009	Flash Flood	Wakefield	-	Heavy rain of 2.00 to 3.00 inches within two hours produced significant flash flooding of most roads across Richland County. Many rural roads were closed to traffic due to high water, especially in the vicinity of Olney.
July 2022	Hail	Wakefield	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Richland 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
Passport	3.5 miles	10
Wilsonburg (historical)	5.5 miles	10
Pureton	7.6 miles	10
Dundas	8.4 miles	10
Noble	9.9 miles	10
Glenwood (historical)	10.4 miles	11
Watertown (historical)	10.5 miles	10
Olney	11.3 miles	10

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 Wakefield	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q7961021	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 420382. 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.