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Westerville, Nebraska

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1951 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Westerville Township. It lies in ZIP code area 68881. It lies near Moody Valley. The Survey maps it on the Westerville quadrangle. 31 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 2,323 feet above sea level.

Westerville within Custer County

Population over time

2 figures

Westerville fell from 39 to 31 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
201039
202031-8 (-21%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 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.

In the county-history sources

984 words on this township

History of Custer County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past, with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religous, and Civic Developement from the Early Days to the Present Time, published 1919 names this settlement in its chapter on Westerville Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

was given the place because of a near-by bridge which the settlers had built across the creek and which was constructed of elm logs taken from the canyons. Other business men located there that winter and the following spring, and in honor of the first resident, James Westerv-elt. the new town was christened Westerville. It was here that Custer county's first newspaper, the Custer County Leader, was born, on. June 13. 1881, with George Trefren, publisher, and Samuel G. Beebe. editor. The Leader continued at Westerville until 1883, when Mr. Beebe moved with it to Broken Bow, where the county seat had been located the previous fall. Mr. Beebe continued to edit the Leader until 1888, when he was appointed postmaster of Broken Bow, by President Harrison. The Leader fell into tlie hands of the Central Nebraska Bank on ( )ctober 26th of that year. It was for a short time edited by J. H. Inman, then by R. H. ]\Iiller, after which the plant was leased to Jake Horn, of Callaway, and W. O. Chapman, of .Ansley. Fred S'hafifer succeeded Horn and Chapman, as editor. Mr. Shaffer, after a few months' experience, discontinued the publication and moved to Denver, where he continued in the newspaper business. He invested in mining stock that in a few years made him rich. The frequent changes in management went against the Leader and the material was sold to other offices.

Passage source: History of Custer County, Nebraska; a Narrative of the Past, with Special Emphasis Upon the Pioneer Period of the County's History, Its Social, Commercial, Educational, Religous, and Civic Developement from the Early Days to the Present Time, published 1919.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Westerville Township - it names this place 1 more 1 time.

Fires near this place

8 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Westerville between 2009 and 2017, burning about 508 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
Equipment and vehicle use4
Debris and open burning3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

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
9 September 2012Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
19 June 2012Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
29 May 2012Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
5 March 2016Equipment and vehicle use1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
4 March 2009Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
26 March 2012Debris and open burning1.0 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named
2 March 2013Debris and open burningunder an acreNebraska Forest Servicenot named
24 November 2017Debris and open burning500 acresNebraska Forest Servicenot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Custer County

Storms near this place

29 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Westerville in 29 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 18 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain, 1 funnel cloud. 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 2008HailWesterville$250,000Hail sizes ranging from quarter to grapefruit size broke many windows, tore holes in the siding of homes, broke windshields in numerous vehicles, and severely damaged the vehicle bodies.
March 2019FloodWesterville$50,000Highway 70 east of Westerville to the Custer and Sherman county line was closed due to flooding.
June 1997HailWesterville$15,000Large wind driven hail broke windows and caused roof damage in homes.
September 2008HailWesterville$5,000no account filed
June 1999HailWesterville$4,000no account filed
July 2025Tornado (EFU)Westerville-Emergency management reports a brief touchdown of a tornado. No damage was reported.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindWesterville-Personal weather station measured a 59 MPH thunderstorm wind gust at this location.
July 2023HailWesterville-Public reported ping pong ball size hail south of Weissert.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindWesterville-Public reported a trailer knocked off its block and small tree branches downed.
July 2020Thunderstorm WindWesterville-Public estimated 60 mph wind gusts near Westerville.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindWesterville-Public reported 60 to 65 mph winds with heavy rain and nickel sized hail. Several 6 inch diameter tree limbs were down on highway 183.
June 2010Thunderstorm WindWesterville-The Severe Thunderstorm Winds were accompanied by 1 inch hail and they combined to break branches three inches in diameter and strip bark off trees in Westerville, Nebraska.
July 2008Heavy RainWesterville-Five inches of rainfall was reported to have fallen in less than a 3 hour period.
April 2003HailWesterville-Hail completely covered the ground.
April 2024Thunderstorm WindWesterville-no account filed
September 2019HailWesterville-no account filed
July 2018HailWesterville-no account filed
July 2015HailWesterville-no account filed
June 2014HailWesterville-no account filed
June 2014HailWesterville-no account filed
July 2013HailWesterville-no account filed
May 2013Funnel CloudWesterville-no account filed
May 2013HailWesterville-no account filed
May 2013HailWesterville-no account filed
May 2013HailWesterville-no account filed
May 2012HailWesterville-no account filed
June 2010HailWesterville-no account filed
June 2008HailWesterville-no account filed
July 2001Thunderstorm WindWesterville-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Custer 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
Weissert5.9 miles11
Berwyn7.0 miles11
Ansley7.5 miles11
Elton (historical)8.9 miles11
Wescott11.5 miles10
Mason City12.7 miles12
Comstock13.3 miles11
Broken Bow13.7 miles12

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 WestervilleAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q3458295The 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 834645. 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.