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Dawson, Nebraska

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1916 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Grant precinct. It lies in ZIP code area 68337. It stands on Cottonwood Creek. The Survey maps it on the Dawson quadrangle. 148 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 974 feet above sea level.

Dawson within Richardson County

On record in Dawson

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

Dawson grew from 146 to 148 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
2010146
2020148+2 (+1%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 11 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.

Fires near this place

8 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Dawson between 2007 and 2020, burning about 282 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 burning7
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
24 July 2013Debris and open burning3.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
4 April 2016Debris and open burning70 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
18 April 2007Debris and open burning3.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
17 April 2019Debris and open burning110 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
23 March 2009Power generation/transmission/distribution15 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
29 February 2016Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
26 February 2009Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
17 February 2020Debris and open burning80 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Richardson County

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Dawson: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
Nemaha Valley Quarry & MillStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer

Every working recorded in Richardson County

Storms near this place

18 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Dawson in 18 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 7 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 4 tornado, 1 heavy rain. 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
July 1996Tornado (F0)Dawson$10,000no account filed
February 2000Thunderstorm WindDawson$1,000Window blown out of a house, wind damage to outbuildings.
May 2025HailDawson-Storm chaser report of hail measured up to 1 in diameter.
April 2024Funnel CloudDawson-The National Weather Serivce in Topeka relayed a report to the Omaha-Valley National Weather Service of a funnel cloud in Richardson County, to the east of Du Bois.
July 2023Thunderstorm WindDawson-NWS employee reported an estimated 60 mph wind gust.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindDawson-Rural carrier reported several locations with trees or large limbs down on or near roads south of Dawson and Humbuldt.
May 2019Tornado (EFU)Dawson-Storm chasers and a sheriff deputy collected video of a small tornado that moved north-northeast in open fields south of Dawson, NE. No discernible damage was noted from this tornado.
May 2019Heavy RainDawson-An observer measured 3.82 inches of rain southeast of Dawson in the previous 24 hours.
May 2019Tornado (EFU)Dawson-A storm chaser videoed a brief touched down near NE Highway 8 south of Dawson.
March 2012HailDawson-Hail nickel to quarter-size fell for several minutes covering the ground white.
June 2011HailDawson-Hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter fell along with thunderstorm wind gusts of over 60 mph.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindDawson-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph blew down a tree across Highway 75 a little south of the intersection of Highway 8. The winds were accompanied by hail which reached up to 1.5 inches in diameter.
August 2007Thunderstorm WindDawson-Thunderstorms winds snapped a power pole in the vicinity...wind speed was estimated at 65 mph.
May 2001Tornado (F0)Dawson-A line of mini-supercells moved north across southeast Nebraska this late afternoon and early evening. The storms produced several small and short-lived tornadoes that touched down from west of Falls City up to south of Auburn. This was the first report of a touchdown with this outbreak. The tornadoes apparently all touched down in open areas, were short-lived and produced very little or no damage.
May 2018HailDawson-no account filed
April 2017HailDawson-no account filed
April 2017HailDawson-no account filed
May 2010HailDawson-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Richardson 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
Verdon6.4 miles11
Nim City6.4 miles11
Humboldt6.5 miles11
Salem7.0 miles11
Stella7.7 miles11
Athens (historical)10.2 miles12
Straussville10.5 miles11
Shubert10.7 miles11

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 DawsonAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q3151377The 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 828603. 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.