Wellsville, Kansas
17 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1885 and the latest in 1983. It stands in Franklin Township. It lies in ZIP code area 66092. The Survey maps it on the Wellsville quadrangle. 1,953 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,040 feet above sea level.
On record in Wellsville
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 3 records
Pleasant Valley School District #2listed 2004
Walnut Creek Bridgelisted 1985
Wellsville Bank Buildinglisted 1991
Population over time
2 figuresWellsville grew from 1,857 to 1,953 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 | 1,857 | |
| 2020 | 1,953 | +96 (+5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 17 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.
- 1885 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:125000
- 1889 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:125000, 6 printings
- 1947 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:250000
- 1950 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:250000
- 1956 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1956 USGS Wellsville quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1961 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:250000
- 1983 USGS Lawrence quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
53 since 2015Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 53 fires within 5 miles of Wellsville between 2015 and 2020, burning about 577 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 26 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 19 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 4 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 2 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 August 2015 | Arson/incendiarism | 15 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 284 |
| 8 July 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 293 |
| 28 July 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Kansas Forest Service | 2090121 |
| 25 July 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 20 acres | Franklin County | 273 |
| 2 July 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Franklin County | 246 |
| 11 July 2017 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | Franklin County | 261 |
| 10 June 2018 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 244 |
| 4 April 2015 | Debris and open burning | 15 acres | Kansas Forest Service | 153 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
37 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wellsville in 37 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 19 hail, 15 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2014 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | $3,000,000 | Trees were uprooted. There was damage to the high school roof. Numerous power lines down over a large swath of Wellsville. |
| May 1995 | Hail | Wellsville | $100,000 | Large hail accompanied by high winds caused widespread damage in and north of Wellsville. This supercell storm had originated in central Kansas and produced extensive and widespread, mainly straightline/ downburst wind damage, as it moved east across the region, finally exiting the state around 2200 CST. |
| June 1999 | Lightning | Wellsville | $10,000 | An unusual event occurred in Wellsville when lightning that struck a house a few days earlier and ignited a smoldering fire that burst into flames the evening of the 2nd. Considerable damage was done to the house, mainly the attic portion. |
| April 1995 | Hail | Wellsville | $8,000 | Large hail propelled by winds estimated over 70 mph caused damage to a barn and outbuildings. Heavy rains of three to five inches, most of it occurring in about one hour, caused isolated temporary flooding. |
| July 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | $5,000 | Strong winds blew tree limbs down on a transformer doing considerable damage. |
| September 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | $3,000 | Strong winds lifted a barn off its foundation and did some damage to the structure. |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | Power pole is down. |
| July 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | Trained spotter estimated winds gusts between 60 and 70 mph. |
| July 2023 | Hail | Wellsville | - | Quarter sized hail reported. |
| September 2023 | Hail | Wellsville | - | Hen egg sized hail reported. |
| July 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | Large tree branches were reported down. |
| March 2017 | Hail | Wellsville | - | Approximately half dollar size hail at the Wellsville Elementary. |
| August 2017 | Flash Flood | Wellsville | - | Flash flooding of several streets in Wellsville. |
| July 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | Trees and power lines down. |
| June 2000 | Flash Flood | Wellsville | - | Heavy rains of two to 5 inches caused some flooding for a time in Wellsville. |
| May 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| August 2008 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| February 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| September 2006 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| July 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| July 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| May 2003 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| March 2002 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| March 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| April 2001 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| April 2001 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| April 2000 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| June 2000 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| September 2000 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| September 2000 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| September 2000 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Hail | Wellsville | - | no account filed |
| July 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wellsville | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Le Loup | 4.4 miles | 17 | |
| Norwood | 8.8 miles | 17 | |
| Peoria | 9.9 miles | 17 | |
| Imes | 10.8 miles | 17 | |
| Ottawa Junction | 11.5 miles | 18 | |
| Rantoul | 11.8 miles | 17 | |
| Ottawa | 12.1 miles | 19 | |
| Centropolis | 14.2 miles | 18 |
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 Wellsville | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1022936 | 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 479383. 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.







