Bigelow, Missouri
13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1920 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Bigelow Township. It lies in ZIP code area 64437. The Survey maps it on the Big Lake quadrangle. 5 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 860 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresBigelow fell from 27 to 5 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 | 27 | |
| 2020 | 5 | -22 (-81%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 13 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.
- 1920 USGS Craig quadrangle1:62500, 5 printings
- 1955 USGS Nebraska City quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Nebraska City quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Nebraska City quadrangle1:250000
- 1981 USGS Big Lake quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Falls City quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
In the county-history sources
3,398 words on this townshipHolt County, Its Soil, Climate, and the Advantages It Offers to Immigration .., published 1869 names this settlement in its chapter on Bigelow Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
Bigelow is a new town of only a few months' growth. It is located on the line of the St. Joseph & Council Bluffs Railroad, three and a half miles West of Mound City, and eleven miles North of Forest City. It is on a level bottom prairie, with an abundance
Passage source: Holt County, Its Soil, Climate, and the Advantages It Offers to Immigration .., published 1869.
St. Joseph will be interested in visiting the immense Wagon and Carriage Works of the 5IE.SSES. Stodebaker Bros , on fourth Street. They have an imraense Establishment containing Wagons enough to supply a dozen counties, aud Carriages to furnish an easy conveyance for all the Beaux and Belles of the Platte Purchase. Their manufactory has earned a national reputation by putting up only the very best work. Give them a call.
Passage source: Holt County, Its Soil, Climate, and the Advantages It Offers to Immigration .., published 1869.
Craig is another of the thriving new towns that hp.ve sprung up, as if by magic, on the line of the St. Joseph & Council liluffs Kailroad. It was laid out a few weeks after Bigelow, at a point between the two Tarkios, nine miles above Bigidow, and some four or five miles from the North line of the County.
Passage source: Holt County, Its Soil, Climate, and the Advantages It Offers to Immigration .., published 1869.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Read the whole chapter on Bigelow Township - it names this place 17 more 17 times.
Fires near this place
21 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 21 fires within 5 miles of Bigelow between 1995 and 2018, burning about 1,580 acres in total. None started naturally. 4 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 | 8 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 4 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 June 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | RODEO GROUNDS |
| 7 April 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 46 acres | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | BIGELOW |
| 28 April 2004 | Smoking | under an acre | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | NORTH WOODS TOUR ROUTE |
| 2 April 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | WILSON |
| 15 April 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | PENDIGON CLUB |
| 12 April 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8.0 acres | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | LEACH |
| 12 April 2000 | Smoking | 1.0 acres | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | THREAT |
| 1 April 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge | WEST RAILROAD GRADE PRIVATE LAND |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
4 since 2005Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bigelow in 4 storm reports between 2005 and 2024: 3 hail, 1 flash 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2024 | Hail | Bigelow | - | Quarter sized hail was reported along Interstate 29 between Craig and Mound City. |
| June 2005 | Flash Flood | Bigelow | - | Flooding on road adjacent to lake. |
| May 2006 | Hail | Bigelow | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Hail | Bigelow | - | 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.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mound City | 3.4 miles | 11 | |
| Big Lake | 3.8 miles | 13 | |
| Fortescue | 4.3 miles | 13 | |
| Napier | 4.6 miles | 13 | |
| Craig | 7.2 miles | 13 | |
| Forest City | 10.2 miles | 23 | |
| Campbell Corner | 10.7 miles | 11 | |
| Oregon | 11.5 miles | 23 |
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 Bigelow | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1941019 | 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 730058. 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.





