Athol, Kansas
12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Lane Township. It lies in ZIP code area 66932. The Survey maps it on the Athol quadrangle. 41 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,785 feet above sea level.
On record in Athol
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 1 record
- Athol Community Halllisted 2025
Population over time
2 figuresAthol fell from 44 to 41 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 | 44 | |
| 2020 | 41 | -3 (-7%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 12 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.
- 1893 USGS Smith Center quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1955 USGS Beloit quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1959 USGS Beloit quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1973 USGS Athol quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Smith Center quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
4 since 2015Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Athol between 2015 and 2017, burning about 4 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 |
|---|---|
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Debris and open burning | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 September 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 2015005 |
| 24 August 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Smith County | 2017021 |
| 7 March 2015 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 2015003 |
| 12 February 2017 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Smith County | 2017006 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
23 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Athol in 23 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 17 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 funnel cloud. 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 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Athol | $100,000 | Wind gusts estimated to be near 70 MPH resulted in the destruction of a new outbuilding as well as tree damage in the general area. |
| May 2018 | Hail | Athol | $50,000 | no account filed |
| March 2018 | Hail | Athol | $25,000 | Hail ranging in size from quarters to ping pong balls was reported along this path. |
| May 2012 | Hail | Athol | $25,000 | no account filed |
| May 2012 | Hail | Athol | $25,000 | no account filed |
| May 1999 | Flash Flood | Athol | $15,000 | no account filed |
| May 1994 | Hail | Athol | $5,000 | no account filed |
| April 2024 | Tornado (EF0) | Athol | $2,000 | A tornado moved across rural areas of northern Smith County north of Athol. This tornado damaged some trees near its starting point and turned over a small mobile building along its way north. The tornado passed near a local limestone quarry. The path was based on a combination of damage indicators in the field and radar Correlation Coefficient signatures. |
| June 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Athol | $2,000 | Wind gusts estimated to be near 65 MPH resulted in trees being downed onto Highway 8. |
| September 2019 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| June 2014 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| April 2012 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| April 2012 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| April 2011 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| September 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Athol | - | no account filed |
| April 2003 | Funnel Cloud | Athol | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| July 1999 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
| September 1995 | Hail | Athol | - | no account filed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kensington | 5.9 miles | 13 | |
| Smith Center | 7.2 miles | 12 | |
| Cedar | 7.5 miles | 12 | |
| Claudell | 9.2 miles | 13 | |
| Gaylord | 9.2 miles | 12 | |
| Reamsville | 11.7 miles | 12 | |
| Bellaire | 13.1 miles | 12 | |
| Harlan | 13.7 miles | 12 |
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 Athol | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1829395 | 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 471950. 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.




