BlockBefore

Wheeler, Indiana

19 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1934 and the latest in 1992. It stands in Union Township. It lies in ZIP code area 46393. It stands on Roper Ditch. The Survey maps it on the Portage quadrangle. 435 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 666 feet above sea level.

Wheeler within Porter County

Population over time

2 figures

Wheeler fell from 443 to 435 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
2010443
2020435-8 (-2%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 19 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

9,439 words on this township

The county-history sources names this settlement in its chapter on Union Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

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 Union Township - it names this place 2 more 2 times.

Fires near this place

12 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 12 fires within 5 miles of Wheeler between 1995 and 2005, burning about 61 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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 burning3
Recreation and ceremony2
Arson/incendiarism1
Railroad operations and maintenance1

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
3 April 2005Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.5 acresIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
11 April 2003Debris and open burning3.0 acresIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
31 March 2003Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
31 March 2002Debris and open burning2.0 acresIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
29 March 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
26 March 2003Debris and open burningunder an acreIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
25 March 1995Railroad operations and maintenance22 acresIndiana Dunes National LakeshoreUNION
13 March 2004Arson/incendiarismunder an acreIndiana State Fire Marshal's Officenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Porter County

Storms near this place

6 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wheeler in 6 storm reports between 2001 and 2025: 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2025Thunderstorm WindWheeler-Photos showed several shingles and other small roofing material peeled off of a house.
May 2025Thunderstorm WindWheeler-A private weather station measured a wind gust to 61 mph.
June 2020Thunderstorm WindWheeler-Tree damage was reported along Route 130 near Wheeler.
August 2001Tornado (F0)Wheeler-A small weak tornado touched down briefly on the north side of Wheeler. A few tree limbs were blown down and corn was flattened.
July 2003HailWheeler-no account filed
July 2002Thunderstorm WindWheeler-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Porter 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
Sedley2.0 miles13
Camelot Manor Estates3.0 miles19
South Haven3.1 miles19
Shorewood Forest3.8 miles13
Garyton4.3 miles19
Portage4.4 miles19
Pleasant Valley4.5 miles19
Lincoln Hills4.8 miles14

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 WheelerAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q9095869The 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 445882. 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.