Towner, North Dakota
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1950 and the latest in 1980. It stands in Towner City. It lies in ZIP code area 58788. The Survey maps it on the Towner quadrangle. 479 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,476 feet above sea level.
Research this city
On record in Towner
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
McHenry County Courthouselisted 1980- Elliott Bridgelisted 1997
Population over time
2 figuresTowner fell from 533 to 479 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 | 533 | |
| 2020 | 479 | -54 (-10%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 7 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.
- 1950 USGS Towner quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1954 USGS Minot quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Minot quadrangle1:250000
- 1980 USGS Velva quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
7 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Towner between 1993 and 2020, burning about 1,852 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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/undetermined | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 2 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Smoking | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 September 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | North Dakota State Forest Service | 92920 |
| 2 June 1997 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge | G-50 PREP |
| 2 May 1994 | Debris and open burning | 1,640 acres | J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge | ASPEN |
| 19 April 2008 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 180 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | MARTHA ROM |
| 2 November 2020 | Debris and open burning | 25 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 110220 |
| 2 October 1993 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.5 acres | J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge | WARD WELL |
| 18 October 1993 | Smoking | 5.0 acres | J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge | 2CCC CAMP |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
34 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Towner in 34 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 23 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | $250,000 | Strong wind gusts were accompanied by hail the size of golf balls. There was damage to structures and automobiles. |
| May 1994 | Tornado (F0) | Towner | $50,000 | Tornado did damage to grain bins and to the roofs of buildings. The path length and width of the tornado were estimated. |
| August 2006 | Flash Flood | Towner | $20,000 | Water as much as 8 inches deep in the streets of the downtown area flowed over the curbs and sidewalks and into businesses. Motorists had to find alternate routes around the city. Most of the damage was of the cleaning up variety typically associated with minor flood waters. |
| June 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | $5,000 | Numerous trees were damage. Cottonwoods 12 to 18 inches in diameter were snapped, and poplar tree branches of six to ten inches were also snapped. |
| July 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | $5,000 | The intense thunderstorm winds were measured with a private weather station. The winds resulted in an old garage blown down. |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | - | Thunderstorm wind gust speed estimated by a COOP observer. |
| July 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | - | Strong winds accompanied large hail. |
| August 2007 | Hail | Towner | - | The storm was accompanied by very heavy rain. |
| July 2006 | Hail | Towner | - | Mainly pea size hail with some stones up to nickel size. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | - | Wind speed measured with an anemometer. Extensive crop damage occurred. |
| June 1997 | Tornado (F0) | Towner | - | brief tornado touchdown reported by law enforcement |
| July 2024 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| June 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| June 2015 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2013 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2010 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2010 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Towner | - | no account filed |
| July 1997 | Hail | Towner | - | no account filed |
| June 1997 | Hail | Towner | - | 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 Towner | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1998298 | 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 1032511. 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.



