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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.

Athol within Smith County

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

Population over time

2 figures

Athol 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.

YearPeople Change
201044
202041-3 (-7%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 12 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

4 since 2015

Regional 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 use2
Debris and open burning2

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
15 September 2015Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresKansas Forest Service2015005
24 August 2017Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresSmith County2017021
7 March 2015Debris and open burning1.0 acresKansas Forest Service2015003
12 February 2017Debris and open burning1.0 acresSmith County2017006

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Smith County

Storms near this place

23 since 1994

Regional 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2024Thunderstorm WindAthol$100,000Wind 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 2018HailAthol$50,000no account filed
March 2018HailAthol$25,000Hail ranging in size from quarters to ping pong balls was reported along this path.
May 2012HailAthol$25,000no account filed
May 2012HailAthol$25,000no account filed
May 1999Flash FloodAthol$15,000no account filed
May 1994HailAthol$5,000no account filed
April 2024Tornado (EF0)Athol$2,000A 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 2021Thunderstorm WindAthol$2,000Wind gusts estimated to be near 65 MPH resulted in trees being downed onto Highway 8.
September 2019HailAthol-no account filed
June 2014HailAthol-no account filed
April 2012HailAthol-no account filed
April 2012HailAthol-no account filed
April 2011HailAthol-no account filed
September 2003Thunderstorm WindAthol-no account filed
April 2003Funnel CloudAthol-no account filed
May 2002HailAthol-no account filed
June 2002HailAthol-no account filed
August 2002HailAthol-no account filed
July 2001HailAthol-no account filed
July 1999HailAthol-no account filed
June 1998HailAthol-no account filed
September 1995HailAthol-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Smith 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
Kensington5.9 miles13
Smith Center7.2 miles12
Cedar7.5 miles12
Claudell9.2 miles13
Gaylord9.2 miles12
Reamsville11.7 miles12
Bellaire13.1 miles12
Harlan13.7 miles12

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 AtholAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1829395The 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.