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Waterville, Minnesota

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Waterville Township. It lies in ZIP code area 56096. It stands on White Water Creek. The Survey maps it on the Waterville quadrangle. 1,750 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,014 feet above sea level.

Waterville within Le Sueur County

On record in Waterville

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

2 figures

Waterville fell from 1,868 to 1,750 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
20101,868
20201,750-118 (-6%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 10 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

2 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Waterville between 2003 and 2006, burning under an acre in total. None started naturally. 1 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
Arson/incendiarism1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

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
9 November 2006Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
20 October 2003Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMinnesota Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Le Sueur County

Storms near this place

20 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Waterville in 20 storm reports between 1999 and 2023: 8 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 4 tornado, 2 funnel cloud. The reports record 1 injury. 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
June 2005Thunderstorm WindWaterville1 hurtTrees were downed across the city. The roof of a trailer home and an attached garage was ripped off and a picture window was blown out. A man in the trailer home was cut on the leg by flying glass from a shattered window and required 14 stitches. A camper in the back yard of the home was blown into Whitewater Creek along with roof and tree debris. Damage was reported to other houses in the vicinity, including one home that was impaled by a 2x4 that came from a damaged building across the street. A tree was downed onto a power truck on Highway 60.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindWaterville$10,000A few trees were blown over, along with approximately 20 feet of corn flattened on the north side of Lake Tetonka.
July 2017Thunderstorm WindWaterville$10,000There were reports of trees and power lines blown down in Waterville. One house in Waterville lost its roof due to the severe winds.
June 2016Thunderstorm WindWaterville$2,000A home had siding damage in Waterville. Numerous trees were also blown downed across the city, some were blocking city streets.
July 2020Heavy RainWaterville-A measured rainfall report over the last 24-hours at Waterville was 7.33 inches.
September 2018Tornado (EF1)Waterville-This is a continuation path of the tornado that crossed the Waseca, Le Sueur county line southwest of Waterville. ||A NWS storm survey, plus areal footage of drone and satellite data, concluded that an EF1 tornado tracked an additional 5.8 miles from southwest of Waterville, then through the northwest corner of Waterville, or between Lake Tetonka and Upper Sakatah Lake, before lifting on the south side of Horseshoe Lake. Tornado damage was consistent with EF1 damage with winds up to 90 mph, and a maximum path width of 330 yards. Damage along the path occurred to homes, outbuildings, and large trees.
September 2018Thunderstorm WindWaterville-A NWS storm survey, plus drone footage, concluded that there was significant damage to the south of the tornado track in the town of Waterville. Damage was consistent with downburst winds and inflow winds into the tornadic storm. Damage was also consistent with winds up to 95 mph with complete destruction of manufactured homes and some campers being rolled several times. Other damage included roof damage and large trees uprooted.
June 2016Tornado (EF0)Waterville-A tornado touched down occasionally, mostly over open fields. It did break a few trees. The tornado crossed into Rice County before dissipating.
May 2012HailWaterville-Consistent hail of half dollar size was covering the ground from Waterville, and east to Calvary Cemetery.
June 2009Funnel CloudWaterville-Trained spotters reported a rotating wall cloud and associated funnel cloud east of Waterville before dissipating.
September 2005HailWaterville-Crop damage was reported from large hail and/or gusty winds in several Le Sueur county townships, including northeast of Waterville.
August 1999Tornado (F0)Waterville-Multiple vortex tornado crossed open fields and continued into Rice County.
August 1999Tornado (F0)Waterville-Few trees down. Tornado continued into Rice County and Camp Omega.
August 1999Funnel CloudWaterville-Funnel Cloud remained over western end of Lake Sakatah.
August 2023HailWaterville-no account filed
March 2021HailWaterville-no account filed
May 2017HailWaterville-no account filed
June 2007HailWaterville-no account filed
May 2002HailWaterville-no account filed
May 2002HailWaterville-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Le Sueur County

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
Rogers2.9 miles10
Gishville (historical)3.1 miles10
Elysian5.8 miles10
Kilkenny6.5 miles10
Greenland8.5 miles10
Cordova9.8 miles10
Doyle10.5 miles10
Marysburg13.3 miles13

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 WatervilleAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2227075The 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 653836. 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.