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Berne, Indiana

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1911 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Monroe Township. It lies in ZIP code area 46711. The Survey maps it on the Berne quadrangle. 4,173 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 843 feet above sea level.

Berne within Adams County

Population over time

2 figures

Berne grew from 3,999 to 4,173 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
20103,999
20204,173+174 (+4%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 13 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.

In the county-history sources

5,546 words on this township

Snow's History of Adams County, Indiana, published 1907 names this settlement in its chapter on Monroe Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The Orphanage, at Berne, burned down on the 19th day of April, 1899. Three of the orphans - Alaggie Dell, of Portland, Indiana, age nine; Mamie Broderick, of Chicago, aged fourteen, and Katie Goebclbcrger, of Cleveland, Ohio, aged fifteen years. were burned to death.

Passage source: Snow's History of Adams County, Indiana, published 1907.

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 Monroe Township - it names this place 1 more 1 time.

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 Berne: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Stone. 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
Adams City Highway Dept.StoneProducer

Every working recorded in Adams County

Storms near this place

23 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Berne in 23 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 10 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 flood. 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
November 2002Tornado (F3)Berne$125,000This tornado touched down 2 miles northeast of Berne and moved just northeast of Salem before lifting.An NWS ground survey found F3 damage at times 200 yards wide northeast of Berne. Much of the damage was to extremely well built Amish barns and homes. A mobile home was also destroyed near Salem.
June 1998Thunderstorm WindBerne$100,000MANY TREES AND POWER LINES WERE DOWN ACROSS THE COUNTY. ONE TREE FLATTENED TWO CARS IN DECATUR WITH THE LIBRARY IN BERNE LOSING PART OF ITS ROOF.
May 2006LightningBerne$90,000The roof of a house just east of the Wells and Adams county line, was struck by lightning, resulting in a attic fire. No one was home at the time. Fire and water damage was estimated close to $90,000.
June 2008Thunderstorm WindBerne$10,000Emergency management officials reported significant tree damage east of Highway 27 from Berne south to Geneva. Some roads were temporarily closed as cleanup was being performed.
June 2025Thunderstorm WindBerne$1,000Public reports that a large was tree uprooted.
April 2025Thunderstorm WindBerne$1,000Large tree down in Berne.
March 2024HailBerne$1,000Photo on Twitter of quarter size hail.
May 2022Thunderstorm WindBerne-A trained spotter reported extensive roof damage to a hog barn near Berne. None of the hogs were impacted.
July 2020HailBerne-Also estimated 50 mph winds.
July 2003Thunderstorm WindBerne-Law enforcement reported trees and power lines down near Berne.
July 2003Flash FloodBerne-Law enforcement reported roads closed due to flash flooding in Berne.
July 2003Flash FloodBerne-Law enforcement reported streets closed in Berne due to flooding.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindBerne-Emergency management reported power lines down southeast of Berne.
July 2001Thunderstorm WindBerne-Power lines down.
July 2001FloodBerne-Up to 4 inches of rain fell in about 1 and 1/2 hours causing most streets to flood and water in somebasements.
June 2013HailBerne-no account filed
August 2011HailBerne-no account filed
May 2011HailBerne-no account filed
April 2006HailBerne-no account filed
August 2003HailBerne-no account filed
April 2003HailBerne-no account filed
April 2003HailBerne-no account filed
May 2001HailBerne-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Adams 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
Ceylon3.5 miles12
Linn Grove4.4 miles11
Geneva4.6 miles12
Coppess Corner6.0 miles13
Monroe6.1 miles13
Perryville6.6 miles10
Salem6.6 miles13
Honduras8.1 miles10

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 BerneAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1779942The 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 430849. 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.