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Oketo, Kansas

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1889 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Oketo Township. It lies in ZIP code area 66518. It stands on North Elm Creek. The Survey maps it on the Oketo quadrangle. 64 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,263 feet above sea level.

Oketo within Marshall County

On record in Oketo

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

Oketo fell from 66 to 64 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
201066
202064-2 (-3%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 14 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

9 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 9 fires within 5 miles of Oketo between 2015 and 2020, burning about 16 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 were 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
Arson/incendiarism3
Debris and open burning2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Recreation and ceremony1

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 April 2020Recreation and ceremony5.0 acresKansas Forest Servicenot named
8 March 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMarshall County99
8 March 2015Arson/incendiarismunder an acreKansas Forest Service77
29 March 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreKansas Forest Service78
24 March 2017Debris and open burning1.0 acresMarshall County101
13 March 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMarshall County100
20 February 2016Arson/incendiarism9.0 acresKansas Forest Service90
3 November 2016Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresKansas Forest Service96

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Marshall County

Storms near this place

29 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Oketo in 29 storm reports between 1999 and 2023: 15 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado, 1 lightning. 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 2004Tornado (F0)Oketo$10,000A tornado touched down near Oketo and moved northnortheast 1 mile before dissipating. A mobile home and several buildings were damaged in Oketo.
June 2001LightningOketo$5,000Lightning struck a house and started a fire that did major damage to the structure.
April 1999Thunderstorm WindOketo$2,000Two barns and a shed suffered wind damage near Oketo.
July 2023Thunderstorm WindOketo-Estimated wind gust of 50 to 60 mph.
June 2022Tornado (EF1)Oketo-Damage survey revealed a garage was destroyed on the south side of state line road with debris thrown north back into Nebraska (across the road). A sporadic damage path moved southeast and ended around highway 77 where power poles were broken along with some tree limb damage. This tornado moved south out of Nebraska and ended in Kansas.
June 2021HailOketo-Delayed report of ping pong size hail.
August 2021Thunderstorm WindOketo-Report of 60 mph wind gust. No reported damage.
August 2018HailOketo-Quarter size hail reported.
June 2017Thunderstorm WindOketo-Wind gusts estimated to be near 70-75 MPH, possibly 80 MPH. Numerous tree limbs were down.
June 2017Thunderstorm WindOketo-A hard shell of a pickup was pulled off near the state line on Highway 77.
June 2015FloodOketo-Creeks and stream are rising again and county roads are covered by water coming out of the fields. Oketo measured 1.5 inches of rain this morning.
April 2011Thunderstorm WindOketo-Spotter reported 2 to 3 inche sized limbs down.
August 2009Thunderstorm WindOketo-Several 7 to 8 inch tree limbs blew down.
June 2008Tornado (EF0)Oketo-Tornado determined to have touched down only briefly. A few outbuildings sustained damage.
August 2008Thunderstorm WindOketo-An eighteen inch diameter tree was uprooted.
June 2015HailOketo-no account filed
May 2013HailOketo-no account filed
May 2013HailOketo-no account filed
May 2013HailOketo-no account filed
June 2011HailOketo-no account filed
April 2010HailOketo-no account filed
June 2010HailOketo-no account filed
June 2010HailOketo-no account filed
June 2008HailOketo-no account filed
June 2008HailOketo-no account filed
June 2004HailOketo-no account filed
June 2004HailOketo-no account filed
July 2001Thunderstorm WindOketo-no account filed
October 2000HailOketo-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Marshall 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
Marietta1.5 miles14
Lone Elm3.0 miles15
Herkimer7.7 miles15
Marysville8.8 miles15
Hermansberg9.2 miles15
Home9.4 miles14
Carden9.4 miles14
Upland9.9 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 OketoAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1867712The 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 472693. 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.