Bristow, Nebraska
11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1951 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Bristow Township. It lies in ZIP code area 68719. The Survey maps it on the Bristow quadrangle. 70 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,473 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresBristow grew from 65 to 70 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 | 65 | |
| 2020 | 70 | +5 (+8%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 11 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.
- 1951 USGS Bristow quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1955 USGS O'Neill quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1959 USGS O'Neill quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1969 USGS O'Neill quadrangle1:250000
- 1986 USGS Atkinson quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1989 USGS O'Neill quadrangle1:250000
Fires near this place
8 since 2007Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Bristow between 2007 and 2020, burning about 246 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 4 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 3 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 July 2007 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.2 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 19 June 2012 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 5 April 2010 | Debris and open burning | 100 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 21 April 2020 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 21 April 2009 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 15 March 2011 | Equipment and vehicle use | 10 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 5 October 2011 | Equipment and vehicle use | 4.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 24 January 2015 | Debris and open burning | 125 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
20 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bristow in 20 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 13 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2016 | Flash Flood | Bristow | $30,000 | Law enforcement reports water over numerous county roads southeast of Spencer. Additional reports included 2 to 3 foot washout sections along gravel roads near Bristow with some roads completely water covered. |
| May 2016 | Flash Flood | Bristow | $15,000 | Several gravel roads around Bristow have two to three feet washouts in them with several county roads under water. |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Bristow | $5,000 | Large tree limbs blown down |
| May 1993 | Hail | Bristow | $5,000 | no account filed |
| July 2004 | Hail | Bristow | $2,000 | Hail ranged in size from nickel to baseball. |
| July 2024 | Hail | Bristow | - | Delayed report with time estimated from radar. |
| July 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Bristow | - | A mobile traffic stoplight was blown over on the north side of a temporary bridge spanning the Niobrara River at Spencer Dam. |
| July 2019 | Hail | Bristow | - | Public reported up to half dollar size hail. |
| August 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Bristow | - | Wind speed of 60 mph reported from COOP Observer. |
| August 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Bristow | - | A NWS Cooperative Weather Observer reported wind gusts to 60 mph. |
| July 2024 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| August 2022 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| August 2020 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| May 2011 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| March 2009 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| July 2004 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Bristow | - | no account filed |
| October 1998 | Hail | Bristow | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rosedale (historical) | 3.1 miles | 9 | |
| Lynch | 6.3 miles | 11 | |
| Spencer | 6.6 miles | 10 | |
| Gross | 7.2 miles | 9 | |
| Baker (historical) | 12.8 miles | 9 | |
| Monowi | 13.5 miles | 11 | |
| Butte | 14.8 miles | 9 | |
| Anoka | 14.9 miles | 9 |
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 Bristow | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2206798 | 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 827650. 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.





