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Pawnee City, Nebraska

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Precinct 1, Pawnee No. 1. It lies in ZIP code area 68420. It stands on West Branch Turkey Creek. The Survey maps it on the Pawnee City quadrangle. 865 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,181 feet above sea level.

Research this city

Pawnee City within Pawnee County

On record in Pawnee City

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 6 records

Population over time

2 figures

Pawnee City fell from 878 to 865 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
2010878
2020865-13 (-1%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 10 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

10 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Pawnee City between 2007 and 2020, burning about 221 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 burning5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined3
Smoking1
Equipment and vehicle use1

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
5 March 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined30 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
21 March 2007Smokingunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
19 March 2011Debris and open burning2.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
19 March 2009Debris and open burning30 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
17 March 2007Equipment and vehicle use6.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
13 March 2009Missing data/not specified/undetermined8.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
7 November 2009Debris and open burning4.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
9 January 2009Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pawnee County

Storms near this place

33 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Pawnee City in 33 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 16 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 2 tornado. 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
June 2000Thunderstorm WindPawnee City$2,000Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 65 mph destroyed a silo and did tree damage north of Pawnee City.
May 2025HailPawnee City-Public report of hail estimated up to 1.25 in diameter. Report received via mPING.
May 2024HailPawnee City-Emergency Management reported quarter sized hail.
May 2023Tornado (EF1)Pawnee City-Tornado started on the northeast side of Pawnee City where the baseball fields sustained damage. The tornado continued northeast and destroyed a grain bin and ended in a field 1 1/2 miles southwest of Table Rock.
May 2023Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Storm chaser reported 4-inch tree limbs blown down.
June 2021Flash FloodPawnee City-Emergency manager reported flooding and 2.15 inches of rain since 16:45 and 2.75 inches since midnight.
December 2021Tornado (EF1)Pawnee City-A brief tornado destroyed several outbuildings and removed a wrap-around porch from a house.
June 2020HailPawnee City-Emergency manager reported 1.25 inch hail.
May 2019HailPawnee City-In Pawnee City.
October 2019Funnel CloudPawnee City-A funnel cloud approximately 5 miles east of Pawnee City was reported by the county emergency manager.
October 2017HailPawnee City-Mostly peas size to one inch diameter hail fell east of Pawnee City. The largest stones were as big as ping pong balls.
October 2017Heavy RainPawnee City-This is a heavy rainfall report.
July 2015Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Several 6-8 diameter tree limbs were down around town. Very heavy rain accompanied the storm as well.
June 2011HailPawnee City-Hail around quarter-size fell in and a little south of Pawnee City.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph flattened crops and downed 4 inch in diameter tree limbs.
June 2009HailPawnee City-Hail just under baseball-size fell from just west of Pawnee City into town. The hail fell for 5 to 10 minutes before it started raining as it gradually shrunk to golf ball-size and smaller. The hail damaged some crops, vehicles and homes in the area.
April 2008HailPawnee City-The time was estimated.
August 2007HailPawnee City-The hail was accompanied by wind gusts estimated at 50 mph.
July 2006Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Thunderstorm winds estimated by a spotter at 60 mph were accompanied by dime size hail.
July 2004Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at least 60 mph downed a large tree in Pawnee City and also downed many tree limbs. The winds also blew a window out of a vacant building, and a few cars were damaged by fallen tree limbs. Trees and power poles were reported broken on county roads 2 miles west and 2.5 miles north of town.
July 2003Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Thunderstorm winds blew down some large tree limbs in town which damaged playground equipment at a park.
September 2001Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph blew over a tree which briefly closed a county road southwest of Pawnee City.
May 1998Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-Three outbuildings destroyed.
April 2017HailPawnee City-no account filed
June 2011HailPawnee City-no account filed
June 2009HailPawnee City-no account filed
July 2006HailPawnee City-no account filed
September 2001HailPawnee City-no account filed
September 2001HailPawnee City-no account filed
June 1998Thunderstorm WindPawnee City-no account filed
June 1998HailPawnee City-no account filed
May 1996Flash FloodPawnee City-no account filed
May 1996Flash FloodPawnee City-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pawnee 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
Violet (historical)5.6 miles10
Table Rock5.7 miles10
Du Bois7.6 miles10
Steinauer8.1 miles10
Burchard10.7 miles10
Mayberry11.5 miles10
Bookwalter11.8 miles10
Armour (historical)14.1 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 Pawnee CityAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q958076The 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 832001. 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.