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Pilot Grove, Missouri

18 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Pilot Grove Township. It lies in ZIP code area 65276. It stands on Mount Vernon Branch. The Survey maps it on the Pilot Grove South quadrangle. 665 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 843 feet above sea level.

Pilot Grove within Cooper County

On record in Pilot Grove

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

Pilot Grove fell from 768 to 665 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
2010768
2020665-103 (-13%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

8 surveys from 18 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.

In the county-history sources

1,894 words on this township

A History of Cooper County, Missouri, from the First Visit by White Men in February, 1804, to the Fifth Day of July, 1876, published 1876 names this settlement in its chapter on Pilot Grove Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Pilot Grove is situated on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway, about twelve miles southwest of Boonville, and was located in 1873. It has a rapid growth, and bids fair to make a very important town. It has one church and Odd Fellows hall. It has about six stores, two blacksmith shops, one wagon shop, one drug store. It is located in- a thickly populated country. The soil is excellent and the people prosperous. It has a good flour mill near by. Its population is about 250.

Passage source: A History of Cooper County, Missouri, from the First Visit by White Men in February, 1804, to the Fifth Day of July, 1876, published 1876.

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 Pilot Grove Township.

Fires near this place

10 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Pilot Grove between 1992 and 2020, burning about 26 acres 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined5
Debris and open burning3
Recreation and ceremony1
Arson/incendiarism1

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
31 May 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMissouri Department of Conservation178945-02732-05312019-1805
31 May 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMissouri Department of Conservation190047-02732-05312019-1800
9 April 2001Arson/incendiarism20 acresMissouri Department of Conservationnot named
6 April 2002Debris and open burning1.0 acresMissouri Department of Conservationnot named
3 April 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMissouri Department of Conservation210502-02732-04032020-1230
25 February 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMissouri Department of Conservation176869-02732-02252018-1901
21 February 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMissouri Department of Conservation210516-02732-02212020-0725
18 February 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMissouri Department of Conservation210512-02732-02182020-0925

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Cooper County

Mines and quarries near this place

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Pilot Grove: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Leonard QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Unknown - S+GSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Cooper County

Storms near this place

17 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Pilot Grove in 17 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 8 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
April 2025Tornado (EF2)Pilot Grove$100,000A tornado with an estimated peak wind of 115 mph (EF-2) traveled for around 6.3 miles across portions of western Cooper County, Missouri, impacting the town of Pilot Grove and surrounding areas. The tornado damage path began just southwest of downtown Pilot Grove, where it caused some minor damage to an outbuilding at a farmstead. The tornado then traveled to the northeast, where it caused minor damage to the roofs of homes on W Bock Street and the Katy Manor on Prospect Street. It then caused damage to several structures along W Harris Street near the intersection of W 3rd Street. In this location, a manufactured home was thrown 100 feet off its cinder blocks and completely destroyed. Large trees were uprooted onto the roof of a home next to the destroyed manufactured home, and an outbuilding was destroyed. The tornado continued to move to the north northeast, where it caused severe damage to a newly well built barndominium style home along Route M just south of Immele Road. After this, the tornado roughly paralleled Route 135, where it damaged numerous houses, completely destroyed outbuildings, caused extensive tree damage, and snapped numerous power poles. The area between the barndominium near Route M and Immele Road and along Route 135 up to Chouteau Springs Rd is where the most extensive damage occurred, with maximum estimated winds up to 115 mph (EF-2), as well as the widest part of the tornado damage path (up to 200 yards). The tornado then turned more northward, with limited observed damage. A small outbuilding was severely damaged along the south outer road of Interstate 70. No damage was observed north of Interstate 70.
April 2001Tornado (F1)Pilot Grove$25,000Tornado on the ground around Pilot Grove for 5 minutes, moving east. It produced minor roof damage to two homes. There were also downed trees and power lines. It was accompanied by baseball sized hail.
June 2025Thunderstorm WindPilot Grove-Emergency Manager reports large trees down in Pilot Grove.
July 2016Thunderstorm WindPilot Grove-The top of a tree of unknown size or condition was twisted and a 20 inch tree was down. Powerlines across the area were down as well.
January 2005Flash FloodPilot Grove-Harriman Road by Highway 135 had water over the road due to heavy rains.
May 2004Flash FloodPilot Grove-Water over the road on M Highway. Also a bridge was washed out on HH Highway. Highway B was also flooded.
July 2004Thunderstorm WindPilot Grove-8 inch diameter tree fell down on a trailer home.
May 2000Thunderstorm WindPilot Grove-Large trees were downed in Pilot Grove.
April 1998HailPilot Grove-Dime-size hail was repported in a severe thunderstorm at Pilot Grove.
April 2014HailPilot Grove-no account filed
May 2011HailPilot Grove-no account filed
May 2009HailPilot Grove-no account filed
April 2005HailPilot Grove-no account filed
May 2002HailPilot Grove-no account filed
April 2001HailPilot Grove-no account filed
May 2000HailPilot Grove-no account filed
August 1999Thunderstorm WindPilot Grove-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Cooper 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
Hoffman2.8 miles18
Harriston3.4 miles18
Chouteau Springs3.6 miles17
Bellair4.6 miles18
Corioli (historical)4.6 miles17
Lamine5.3 miles18
Pleasant Green5.5 miles18
Speed6.0 miles18

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 Pilot GroveAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q967115The 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 724345. 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.