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.
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
Z. H. Moore Storelisted 1976
Population over time
2 figuresOketo 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 66 | |
| 2020 | 64 | -2 (-3%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 14 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.
- 1889 USGS Marysville quadrangle1:125000
- 1894 USGS Marysville quadrangle1:125000, 4 printings
- 1955 USGS Manhattan quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1956 USGS Manhattan quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Manhattan quadrangle1:250000
- 1966 USGS Oketo quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Blue Rapids quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
9 since 2015Regional 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/incendiarism | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 2 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
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 April 2020 | Recreation and ceremony | 5.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | not named |
| 8 March 2017 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Marshall County | 99 |
| 8 March 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 77 |
| 29 March 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 78 |
| 24 March 2017 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Marshall County | 101 |
| 13 March 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Marshall County | 100 |
| 20 February 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 9.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 90 |
| 3 November 2016 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 96 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
29 since 1999Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2004 | Tornado (F0) | Oketo | $10,000 | A tornado touched down near Oketo and moved northnortheast 1 mile before dissipating. A mobile home and several buildings were damaged in Oketo. |
| June 2001 | Lightning | Oketo | $5,000 | Lightning struck a house and started a fire that did major damage to the structure. |
| April 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | $2,000 | Two barns and a shed suffered wind damage near Oketo. |
| July 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | Estimated wind gust of 50 to 60 mph. |
| June 2022 | Tornado (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 2021 | Hail | Oketo | - | Delayed report of ping pong size hail. |
| August 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | Report of 60 mph wind gust. No reported damage. |
| August 2018 | Hail | Oketo | - | Quarter size hail reported. |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | Wind gusts estimated to be near 70-75 MPH, possibly 80 MPH. Numerous tree limbs were down. |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | A hard shell of a pickup was pulled off near the state line on Highway 77. |
| June 2015 | Flood | Oketo | - | 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 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | Spotter reported 2 to 3 inche sized limbs down. |
| August 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | Several 7 to 8 inch tree limbs blew down. |
| June 2008 | Tornado (EF0) | Oketo | - | Tornado determined to have touched down only briefly. A few outbuildings sustained damage. |
| August 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | An eighteen inch diameter tree was uprooted. |
| June 2015 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| May 2013 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| May 2013 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| May 2013 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| April 2010 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2008 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Oketo | - | no account filed |
| October 2000 | Hail | Oketo | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marietta | 1.5 miles | 14 | |
| Lone Elm | 3.0 miles | 15 | |
| Herkimer | 7.7 miles | 15 | |
| Marysville | 8.8 miles | 15 | |
| Hermansberg | 9.2 miles | 15 | |
| Home | 9.4 miles | 14 | |
| Carden | 9.4 miles | 14 | |
| Upland | 9.9 miles | 14 |
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 Oketo | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1867712 | 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 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.






