BlockBefore

Tonawanda, New York

30 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1897 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Tonawanda City. It lies in ZIP code area 14150. It stands on Ellicott Creek. The Survey maps it on the Tonawanda West quadrangle. 15,129 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 571 feet above sea level.

Tonawanda within Erie County

Then and now

1897 to 1984

The same ground, surveyed 87 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Tonawanda, surveyed 1984
Topographic sheet of Tonawanda, surveyed 1897

On record in Tonawanda

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 4 records

Population over time

2 figures

Tonawanda fell from 15,130 to 15,129 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
201015,130
202015,129-1 (-0%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

14 surveys from 30 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

569 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 569 fires within 5 miles of Tonawanda between 2000 and 2020, burning about 238 acres in total. 103 started naturally. 60 were 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined278
Natural103
Smoking64
Arson/incendiarism60
Debris and open burning22
Equipment and vehicle use19
Misuse of fire by a minor11
Recreation and ceremony6
Power generation/transmission/distribution5
Railroad operations and maintenance1

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 2015Naturalunder an acreFire Department of New YorkNA
7 September 2016Naturalunder an acreFire Department of New YorkN/A
7 September 2007Debris and open burningunder an acreFire Department of New Yorknot named
6 September 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreFire Department of New Yorknot named
6 September 2000Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreFire Department of New Yorknot named
5 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreFire Department of New YorkN/A
4 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undetermined5.0 acresFire Department of New YorkNA
4 September 2012Naturalunder an acreFire Department of New Yorknot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Erie County

Storms near this place

20 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Tonawanda in 20 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 12 thunderstorm wind, 7 flash flood, 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
September 1996Flash FloodTonawanda$400,000no account filed
November 1999Flash FloodTonawanda$300,000no account filed
September 1996Flash FloodTonawanda$200,000no account filed
August 1999Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$12,000no account filed
August 2019Flash FloodTonawanda$10,000Flooding with flowing water was reported at Morgan Street and Kohler Street.
August 2019Flash FloodTonawanda$10,000Knoche Road was closed due to flooding between Elmwood and Deleware Avenues.
September 2007Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$10,000no account filed
July 2006Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$10,000no account filed
May 2000Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$10,000no account filed
September 1997Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$10,000no account filed
August 2006Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$8,000no account filed
April 2023Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$5,000Part of a school roof was torn off.
November 2020Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$5,000Multiple trees and power lines were reported down.
February 2019Flash FloodTonawanda$5,000no account filed
July 2019Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$2,000Trees and power lines down onto Kohler Street.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$1,000Trees were reported down.
June 2023Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$500A power pole was snapped.
July 2021Thunderstorm WindTonawanda$500A tree was reported down near Highland Avenue and Tussing Lane.
August 2024Flash FloodTonawanda-Several cars trapped in high water on Delaware Avenue under an underpass. Near Knoche Road.
July 2021Heavy RainTonawanda-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Erie 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
Sour Spring Grove2.3 miles30
Edgewater2.4 miles30
Green Acres Valley2.7 miles28
Brighton3.1 miles25
Ellwood Park3.4 miles25
Kenmore3.8 miles25
Willow Ridge Estates3.8 miles28
Grandyle Village4.3 miles26

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 TonawandaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1380722The 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 967652. 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.