Berea, Kentucky
18 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1892 and the latest in 1991. It stands in the Berea census division. It lies in ZIP code area 40403. It lies near Welch Mountain. The Survey maps it on the Berea quadrangle. 15,539 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,024 feet above sea level.
On record in Berea
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 8 records
Lincoln HallNational Historic Landmark · listed 1974
Boone Tavern Hotellisted 1996
Louisville and Nashville Railroad Passenger Depotlisted 1975
Tate Buildinglisted 2006- Berea College Forestlisted 2003
- Berea College Square Commercial Historic Districtlisted 2020
- Berea Downtown Commercial and Residential Historic Districtlisted 2020
- Churchill Weaverslisted 2014
Surveyed buildings and structures 1 record
- Berea College, Lincoln Hall, Berea College, Bereafederal building survey, 5 photographs
Population over time
2 figuresBerea grew from 13,561 to 15,539 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 | 13,561 | |
| 2020 | 15,539 | +1,978 (+15%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 18 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.
- 1892 USGS Richmond quadrangle1:125000
- 1897 USGS Richmond quadrangle1:125000, 5 printings
- 1952 USGS Berea quadrangle1:24000
- 1957 USGS Winchester quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1960 USGS Winchester quadrangle1:250000
- 1970 USGS Berea quadrangle1:24000, 5 printings
- 1986 USGS Harrodsburg quadrangle1:100000
- 1991 USGS Harrodsburg quadrangle1:100000
Photographs
8 photographs, 2020Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2020. Library of Congress
Fires near this place
79 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 79 fires within 5 miles of Berea between 1997 and 2019, burning about 602 acres in total. None started naturally. 12 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 | 42 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 15 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 12 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 5 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 2 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 2 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 September 2007 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 17 September 2000 | Debris and open burning | 1.5 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 15 September 1998 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 14 September 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 14 September 1998 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 27 August 2007 | Misuse of fire by a minor | 6.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 13 June 2007 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 7 April 2002 | Recreation and ceremony | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
10 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Berea in 10 storm reports between 1996 and 2006: 5 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 tornado, 1 lightning. The reports record 1 death and 10 injuries. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 1996 | Lightning | Berea | 1 killed | no account filed |
| April 1996 | Tornado (F2) | Berea | 10 hurt, $12,800,000 | no account filed |
| January 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Berea | $50,000 | A mobile home was demolished. |
| October 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Berea | $5,000 | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Berea | - | no account filed |
| March 2003 | Hail | Berea | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Berea | - | no account filed |
| September 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Berea | - | no account filed |
| May 1998 | Hail | Berea | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Berea | - | no account filed |
Newspapers printed here
9,113 digitised pages1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 1,228 issues, 9,113 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
| Newspaper | Published |
|---|---|
| The Citizen | 1899 to 1958 |
What the paper printed
11,689 wordsFront pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 5 issues spread across its run from 1899 to 1922, 11,689 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.
These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.
| Issue | Paper | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1899-07-19 | The Citizen | 3,731 words |
| 1899-08-30 | The Citizen | 1,988 words |
| 1899-10-11 | The Citizen | 612 words |
| 1899-11-22 | The Citizen | 2,076 words |
| 1922-12-28 | The Citizen | 3,282 words |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Middletown | 1.5 miles | 18 | |
| Blythewood Estates (historical) | 1.5 miles | 18 | |
| Slate Lick | 1.7 miles | 18 | |
| Wallaceton | 3.5 miles | 18 | |
| Farristown | 3.7 miles | 18 | |
| Whites | 4.3 miles | 17 | |
| Bighill | 4.8 miles | 16 | |
| Bobtown | 4.9 miles | 16 |
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 Berea | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q3180809 | 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 486894. 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.







