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
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
E. F. Hempstead Houselisted 1982
Pawnee City Carnegie Librarylisted 2010
Pawnee County Courthouselisted 1990
Rinne Farmlisted 2015
US Post Office-Pawnee Citylisted 1992- Pawnee City Historic Business Districtlisted 1994
Population over time
2 figuresPawnee 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 878 | |
| 2020 | 865 | -13 (-1%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 10 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.
- 1955 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000, 5 printings
- 1957 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Lincoln quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Pawnee City quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Beatrice quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
10 since 2007Regional 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 burning | 5 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 March 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 21 March 2007 | Smoking | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 19 March 2011 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 19 March 2009 | Debris and open burning | 30 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 17 March 2007 | Equipment and vehicle use | 6.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 13 March 2009 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 7 November 2009 | Debris and open burning | 4.0 acres | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
| 9 January 2009 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Nebraska Forest Service | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
33 since 1996Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | $2,000 | Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 65 mph destroyed a silo and did tree damage north of Pawnee City. |
| May 2025 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | Public report of hail estimated up to 1.25 in diameter. Report received via mPING. |
| May 2024 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | Emergency Management reported quarter sized hail. |
| May 2023 | Tornado (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 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Storm chaser reported 4-inch tree limbs blown down. |
| June 2021 | Flash Flood | Pawnee City | - | Emergency manager reported flooding and 2.15 inches of rain since 16:45 and 2.75 inches since midnight. |
| December 2021 | Tornado (EF1) | Pawnee City | - | A brief tornado destroyed several outbuildings and removed a wrap-around porch from a house. |
| June 2020 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | Emergency manager reported 1.25 inch hail. |
| May 2019 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | In Pawnee City. |
| October 2019 | Funnel Cloud | Pawnee City | - | A funnel cloud approximately 5 miles east of Pawnee City was reported by the county emergency manager. |
| October 2017 | Hail | Pawnee 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 2017 | Heavy Rain | Pawnee City | - | This is a heavy rainfall report. |
| July 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Several 6-8 diameter tree limbs were down around town. Very heavy rain accompanied the storm as well. |
| June 2011 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | Hail around quarter-size fell in and a little south of Pawnee City. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph flattened crops and downed 4 inch in diameter tree limbs. |
| June 2009 | Hail | Pawnee 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 2008 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | The time was estimated. |
| August 2007 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | The hail was accompanied by wind gusts estimated at 50 mph. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated by a spotter at 60 mph were accompanied by dime size hail. |
| July 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee 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 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Thunderstorm winds blew down some large tree limbs in town which damaged playground equipment at a park. |
| September 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at over 60 mph blew over a tree which briefly closed a county road southwest of Pawnee City. |
| May 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | Three outbuildings destroyed. |
| April 2017 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| June 2009 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| September 2001 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| September 2001 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Hail | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| May 1996 | Flash Flood | Pawnee City | - | no account filed |
| May 1996 | Flash Flood | Pawnee City | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violet (historical) | 5.6 miles | 10 | |
| Table Rock | 5.7 miles | 10 | |
| Du Bois | 7.6 miles | 10 | |
| Steinauer | 8.1 miles | 10 | |
| Burchard | 10.7 miles | 10 | |
| Mayberry | 11.5 miles | 10 | |
| Bookwalter | 11.8 miles | 10 | |
| Armour (historical) | 14.1 miles | 11 |
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 City | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q958076 | 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 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.




