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.
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
- Arthur Dehn Houselisted 1982
- Union Hotellisted 1982
Population over time
2 figuresWaterville 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 1,868 | |
| 2020 | 1,750 | -118 (-6%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 10 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.
- 1953 USGS Saint Paul quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1953 USGS St. Paul quadrangle1:250000
- 1959 USGS Saint Paul quadrangle1:250000
- 1959 USGS St. Paul quadrangle1:250000
- 1966 USGS Waterville quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1985 USGS Faribault quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
2 since 2003Regional 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/incendiarism | 1 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 November 2006 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 20 October 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
20 since 1999Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | 1 hurt | Trees 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 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $10,000 | A few trees were blown over, along with approximately 20 feet of corn flattened on the north side of Lake Tetonka. |
| July 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $10,000 | There were reports of trees and power lines blown down in Waterville. One house in Waterville lost its roof due to the severe winds. |
| June 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | $2,000 | A home had siding damage in Waterville. Numerous trees were also blown downed across the city, some were blocking city streets. |
| July 2020 | Heavy Rain | Waterville | - | A measured rainfall report over the last 24-hours at Waterville was 7.33 inches. |
| September 2018 | Tornado (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 2018 | Thunderstorm Wind | Waterville | - | 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 2016 | Tornado (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 2012 | Hail | Waterville | - | Consistent hail of half dollar size was covering the ground from Waterville, and east to Calvary Cemetery. |
| June 2009 | Funnel Cloud | Waterville | - | Trained spotters reported a rotating wall cloud and associated funnel cloud east of Waterville before dissipating. |
| September 2005 | Hail | Waterville | - | Crop damage was reported from large hail and/or gusty winds in several Le Sueur county townships, including northeast of Waterville. |
| August 1999 | Tornado (F0) | Waterville | - | Multiple vortex tornado crossed open fields and continued into Rice County. |
| August 1999 | Tornado (F0) | Waterville | - | Few trees down. Tornado continued into Rice County and Camp Omega. |
| August 1999 | Funnel Cloud | Waterville | - | Funnel Cloud remained over western end of Lake Sakatah. |
| August 2023 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| March 2021 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| May 2017 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| June 2007 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Hail | Waterville | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Hail | Waterville | - | 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.
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 Waterville | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2227075 | 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 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.





