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Vanceburg, Kentucky

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1919 and the latest in 1991. It stands in the Vanceburg census division. It lies in ZIP code area 41179. It stands on Dry Run. The Survey maps it on the Vanceburg quadrangle. 1,428 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 538 feet above sea level.

Research this city

Vanceburg within Lewis County

On record in Vanceburg

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

Surveyed buildings and structures 5 records

Population over time

2 figures

Vanceburg fell from 1,518 to 1,428 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
20101,518
20201,428-90 (-6%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 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.

Photographs

5 photographs,

Taken 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.

John Bierly House, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
John Bierly House, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Peter Taylor Chapel, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Peter Taylor Chapel, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Thomas J. Bruce Barn, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Thomas J. Bruce Barn, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Thomas J. Bruce House, State Route 8 (south side), Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Thomas J. Bruce House, State Route 8 (south side), Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Fred Carr House, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Fred Carr House, State Route 8, Vanceburg, Lewis County, KY
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress

Fires near this place

39 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 39 fires within 5 miles of Vanceburg between 1997 and 2020, burning about 2,731 acres in total. None started naturally. 6 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 burning16
Recreation and ceremony9
Missing data/not specified/undetermined7
Arson/incendiarism6
Equipment and vehicle use1

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
5 September 2007Debris and open burning60 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
20 September 2002Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
6 May 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined4.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
23 May 2007Debris and open burning1.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
11 May 2000Debris and open burning5.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
8 April 2001Arson/incendiarism8.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
6 April 2013Recreation and ceremony20 acresKentucky Division of ForestryVANCEBURG HILL
6 April 1999Debris and open burning1,000 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lewis County

Storms near this place

25 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Vanceburg in 25 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 12 thunderstorm wind, 6 flash flood, 4 hail, 3 flood. 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
December 2013Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$15,000Roof damage occurred to a home in Vanceburg due to thunderstorm winds. Scattered trees were downed around the county as well as some road closures due to the downed trees.
June 2005Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$6,000Several trees were downed.
August 1998Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$5,000Trees down across State Route 8.
August 1997Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$5,000Trees downed.
June 1997Flash FloodVanceburg$5,000Roads flooded.
July 2022Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$4,000Several trees were downed between Garrison and Black Oak.
May 1995Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$4,000Several trees downed, some across State Route 8.
April 2025Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$2,000A couple of trees were downed in the Vanceburg area.
March 2017Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$2,000A few trees were downed.
August 2007Flash FloodVanceburg$2,000Several roads were flooded along Quicks Run.
June 2007Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$2,000Large tree limbs were downed.
September 2025Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$1,000A tree was downed across the eastbound lane of Kentucky Route 8.
May 2009Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$1,000Two trees were knocked down.
December 2007FloodVanceburg$1,000State Route 8 and Rock Run Road were flooded and impassable.
November 2002Thunderstorm WindVanceburg$1,000Two trees were downed near the intersection of State Route 10 and Boman Springs Road.
June 2021Flash FloodVanceburg-Several inches of water was flowing across portions of State Route 8 between Vanceburg and Garrison.
December 2019FloodVanceburg-Kentucky 8 had high water over part of the road.
June 2018FloodVanceburg-Water was reported flowing over a road in the Black Oak subdivision.
August 2009HailVanceburg-Nickel to Golf ball size hail fell in the Vanceburg area.
September 2004Flash FloodVanceburg-Several roads were flooded and closed. A pickup truck was washed away in floodwaters from Salt Lick Creek.
May 2003Flash FloodVanceburg-Quicks Run Road was washed out.
January 2002Flash FloodVanceburg-Quicks Run Road was closed by high water.
July 2003HailVanceburg-no account filed
May 2003HailVanceburg-no account filed
June 1995HailVanceburg-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lewis County

Newspapers printed here

6,738 digitised pages

5 papers published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 843 issues, 6,738 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 Vanceburg Courier187? to 1???
The Vanceburg Sun1889 to 1910
The Sun1910 to 1915
The Vanceburg Sun1915 to 1917
The Sun1917 to 1924

What the paper printed

24,759 words

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 20 issues spread across its run from 1884 to 1924, 24,759 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
1884-07-09The Vanceburg Courier3,155 words
1884-10-08The Vanceburg Courier1,498 words
1884-10-29The Vanceburg Courier1,698 words
1906-08-30The Vanceburg Sun1,671 words
1906-10-18The Vanceburg Sun1,190 words
1906-11-29The Vanceburg Sun936 words
1910-12-29The Vanceburg Sun1,735 words
1911-03-02The Sun490 words
1911-05-25The Sun542 words
1911-08-31The Sun753 words
1911-11-23The Sun553 words
1915-03-18The Vanceburg Sun929 words
1915-06-03The Vanceburg Sun869 words
1915-08-26The Vanceburg Sun1,178 words
1915-11-04The Vanceburg Sun970 words
1917-03-15The Sun1,454 words
1917-05-31The Sun751 words
1917-08-09The Sun1,179 words
1917-11-08The Sun203 words
1924-03-20The Sun3,005 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
Clarksburg2.7 miles14
Buena Vista3.2 miles14
Kinniconick5.5 miles14
Charters6.3 miles13
Tannery6.7 miles14
Carrs6.7 miles15
Queens6.8 miles15
Upper Bruce (historical)7.1 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 VanceburgAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2366795The 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 505972. 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.