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Marion, Kentucky

20 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1916 and the latest in 1987. It stands in the Marion census division. It lies in ZIP code area 42064. It lies near Wilson Hill. The Survey maps it on the Marion quadrangle. 2,916 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 594 feet above sea level.

Research this city

Marion within Crittenden County

On record in Marion

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 2 records

Population over time

3 figures

Marion fell from 3,196 to 2,916 between 2000 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
20003,196
20103,039-157 (-5%)
20202,916-123 (-4%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

14 surveys from 20 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

17 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 17 fires within 5 miles of Marion between 1997 and 2019, burning about 120 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined9
Recreation and ceremony6
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
28 July 2012Missing data/not specified/undetermined30 acresKentucky Division of ForestryFRITZ RD.
9 April 2013Recreation and ceremony4.0 acresKentucky Division of ForestryCAULEY BROWN RD.
14 April 2003Missing data/not specified/undetermined5.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
5 March 2010Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
23 March 1997Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
17 March 2019Debris and open burning9.0 acresKentucky Division of ForestryHWY1668
5 February 2017Missing data/not specified/undetermined10 acresKentucky Division of ForestryNIPPER ROAD
28 February 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreKentucky Division of Forestrynot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Crittenden County

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 29 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 29 workings within 5 miles of Marion: 16 unknowns, 5 past producers, 5 occurrences, 2 prospects. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Fluorine-Fluorite, Fluorine-Fluorite, Zinc, Lead, Zinc, Lead, Zinc. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Bryant ProspectCobalt, Nickel, ZincProspect1901
Columbia MineFluorine-Fluorite, Zinc, LeadPast Producer
Levias - Crittenden Springs Group Fluorspar MinesFluorine-Fluorite, Zinc, LeadPast Producer1903
Nine Acre MineFluorine-Fluorite, Lead, ZincUnknown
Old Jim MineZincUnknown
Wallingford ProspectCobalt, Manganese, Nickel, ZincOccurrence1898
Ada Florence MineFluorine-FluoriteUnknown
C.D.Chick ProspectFluorine-FluoriteProspect
Clement MineFluorine-FluoriteUnknown
Keystone Mine and MillFluorine-FluoritePast Producer

Every working recorded in Crittenden County

Storms near this place

45 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Marion in 45 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 19 thunderstorm wind, 11 flash flood, 9 hail, 3 heavy rain. 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
August 2009HailMarion$250,000A swath of large hail affected much of the county. Quarter-size hail fell in Marion. Golf-ball size hail fell in Crayne. Significant hail damage occurred in Crayne, where mobile homes were riddled with holes. Windows were broken, and vehicles were damaged. Roofs and siding of houses were heavily damaged. A dozen or more homes suffered damage. Corn and soybean fields were badly damaged.
September 2011Thunderstorm WindMarion$100,000The dust collector on top of a feed mill was blown off, leaving behind a large hole in the roof. A metal roof was torn off a shed behind a hardware store. The shed roof was deposited in trees. Both the feed mill and shed sustained water damage due to rainwater. Shingles were torn off roofs around town. Trees and limbs were blown down across the city, resulting in power outages. A tree limb struck a porch on a trailer. Signs were blown over.
July 2000Thunderstorm WindMarion$70,000Numerous trees and power lines were blown down in the Marion area. The damage path, which was a few miles wide, extended from west to east across central portions of Crittenden County. Some roads were blocked by fallen trees. Windows were blown out of an attorney's office in Marion. A metal shed was blown across a yard.
February 2022Flash FloodMarion$50,000Highway 91 was closed on the northwest edge of Marion, where Crooked Creek flooded and destroyed a temporary detour for construction of a new bridge.
August 2009Thunderstorm WindMarion$45,000Numerous trees and power lines were blown down. One home was damaged when power lines were pulled from the side of it. Carports were blown down. A barn was blown down.
October 2025Thunderstorm WindMarion$40,000Thunderstorm winds produced damage in Marion. A large tree was uprooted and fell onto two vehicles, causing major damage to both. In addition, a garage had a portion of its roof removed and two other trees had some broken limbs.
July 2000Flash FloodMarion$40,000Thunderstorm rains estimated in excess of 2 inches per hour caused major road flooding in and around Marion. Roads were impassable to small vehicles due to high water. In Marion, over a foot of water on the main street flooded out a police cruiser responding to an alarm. A utility truck reported 2 feet of water over a road on the south end of Marion that doesn't normally flood.
May 2008Thunderstorm WindMarion$25,000Downed trees and power lines were reported community wide.
August 2009Heavy RainMarion$10,000A culvert along U.S. Highway 641 was washed out, causing minor damage to the road.
March 1997Flash FloodMarion$10,000no account filed
January 1996Thunderstorm WindMarion$10,000no account filed
May 1995Thunderstorm WindMarion$10,000no account filed
May 1996Thunderstorm WindMarion$5,000no account filed
May 2007Thunderstorm WindMarion$4,000Trees were down on two streets in Marion, including one that fell on a power line. Another tree was down off Highway 506 just southeast of Marion.
April 2002Tornado (F1)Marion$3,000This short-lived tornado crossed U.S. Highway 60 northeast of Marion, downing numerous trees. This tornado was one in a series of tornadoes spawned by a supercell thunderstorm that tracked eastward across Livingston, Crittenden, and Webster Counties.
May 2017Thunderstorm WindMarion$2,000A wind gust to 64 mph was measured at a Kentucky mesonet site. A few tree limbs were down on roads.
May 2013Thunderstorm WindMarion$2,000Law enforcement officials reported a tree blown down with an estimated wind gust near 60 mph.
June 2018Thunderstorm WindMarion$1,000A gust to 63 mph was measured at the Kentucky mesonet site. A power line was blown down.
September 2025Dust DevilMarion-A small dust devil, with winds estimated at 60-70mph, formed right outside Crittenden County Middle School around 1800CST with video taken of it from a classroom inside and a construction crew outside the school. No damages or injuries occurred. The video taken from the classroom was shared by broadcast media.
January 2023HailMarion-Photos were taken of golf ball size hail.
September 2023HailMarion-A few hailstones were larger than quarters.
April 2022FloodMarion-Water was over Highway 641 just south of Highway 60 in Marion. Signs were posted for this minor flooding.
July 2019Flash FloodMarion-Several inches of water flowed through streets and yards in Marion.
April 2017Thunderstorm WindMarion-Emergency management personnel estimated winds gusted from 60 to 65 mph.
July 2016Flash FloodMarion-Numerous roads were covered by water.
July 2015Heavy RainMarion-Creeks and streams rose past bankfull.
October 2013Flash FloodMarion-An intersection along U.S. Highway 641 was impassable due to flooding.
August 2013Flash FloodMarion-Local law enforcement officials reported flash flooding over portions of the county. Water was reported over U.S. Highway 641 between Marion and the county line. The highway was not closed.
April 2011Thunderstorm WindMarion-This wind gust was measured at a Kentucky mesonet site.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindMarion-The Kentucky mesonet site near Marion measured a peak wind gust to 69 mph.
May 2009Heavy RainMarion-Due to creek flooding, about five feet of water covered a helipad at a medical facility. The flooding there typically occurs three or four times a year.
May 2008Flash FloodMarion-Standing water was observed along Highway 365 between mile markers 1 and 2 and over Highway 664 at the 6-mile marker.
July 2007Flash FloodMarion-High water slowed travel. In Marion, water was up to the bumpers of cars in some places. Parking lots and streets were flooded in town. Across the county, some creeks overflowed on roads. A government official reported the county received about 5 inches of rain.
November 2002Thunderstorm WindMarion-A few trees were blown down.
January 2002Thunderstorm WindMarion-Trees were blown down northeast of Marion up to Mattoon.
May 2008HailMarion-no account filed
May 2007HailMarion-no account filed
April 2006HailMarion-no account filed
May 2003Thunderstorm WindMarion-no account filed
May 2003HailMarion-no account filed
May 2002HailMarion-no account filed
May 2002HailMarion-no account filed
April 1999Thunderstorm WindMarion-no account filed
June 1998Flash FloodMarion-no account filed
March 1997Flash FloodMarion-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Crittenden County

Newspapers printed here

12,767 digitised pages

6 papers published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 1,658 issues, 12,767 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.

NewspaperPublished
The Crittenden Record1904 to 1907
Crittenden Press1879 to 1907
Crittenden Record=press1907 to 1909
Twice-A-Week Record-Press1909
Crittenden Record-Press1909 to 191?
The Crittenden Press1919 to Current

What the paper printed

32,960 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 18 issues spread across its run from 1886 to 1919, 32,960 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.

IssuePaper Length
1904-09-30The Crittenden Record121 words
1904-11-11The Crittenden Record696 words
1886-03-18Crittenden Press649 words
1907-02-07Crittenden Press2,495 words
1907-03-28Crittenden Record=press1,403 words
1907-06-06Crittenden Record=press2,104 words
1907-08-22Crittenden Record=press2,891 words
1907-10-31Crittenden Record=press1,302 words
1909-08-10Twice-A-Week Record-Press950 words
1909-08-24Twice-A-Week Record-Press2,747 words
1909-09-03Twice-A-Week Record-Press2,756 words
1909-09-23Crittenden Record-Press1,055 words
1909-11-11Crittenden Record-Press1,365 words
1909-12-02Crittenden Record-Press2,458 words
1918-08-29Crittenden Record-Press2,927 words
1919-09-05The Crittenden Press3,276 words
1919-10-17The Crittenden Press3,210 words
1919-11-21The Crittenden Press555 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 PlaceDistance Sheets
Pleasant Hill (historical)1.8 miles20
Crooked Creek (historical)3.0 miles20
Sisco Chapel (historical)4.1 miles21
Crayne4.3 miles20
Tribune4.8 miles14
Forest Grove (historical)4.9 miles23
Piney Fork5.0 miles20
Siloem (historical)5.0 miles21

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 MarionAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1978123The 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 497543. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.