Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Spencer, Ohio

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1904 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Spencer Village. It lies in ZIP code area 44275. The Survey maps it on the Lodi quadrangle. 684 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 912 feet above sea level.

Spencer within Medina County

Population over time

2 figures

Spencer fell from 753 to 684 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. 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	753
2020	684	-69 (-9%)

Then and now

1904 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 82 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Spencer, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of Spencer, surveyed 1904

Topographic sheets covering this place

12 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.

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 186 shown

Museums hold 186 specimens collected within 10 miles of Spencer between 1888 and 1975: 160 Animalia, 15 Fungi, 10 Plantae, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by B.J. Zahuranec, BJ Zahuranec & party, Bosler and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Diatrypella prominens (Howe) Ellis & Everh.	1902	Grover, F. O.	Wellington Creek, Lagrange, Ohio
Diatrype virescens (Schwein.) Cooke	1906	Wilson, C. B.	Penfield, Ohio
Trimmatostroma Corda	1907	C.B. Wilson
Lilium canadense L.	1888	E. Barrick	Chatham
Aleurodiscus oakesii (Berk. & M.A.Curtis) Cooke	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Atrichum angustatum (Brid.) Bruch & Schimp.	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Lobaria amplissima (Scop.) Forssell	1894	Francis D Kelsey	Penfield
Mnium stellare Hedw.	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Mycosphaerella macularis (Fr.) J.Schröt.	1894	Kelsey F. D.	Penfield
Rhodobryum ontariense (Kindb.) Paris	1894	F. D. Kelsey	Penfield
Ricasolia quercizans (Michx.) Stizenb.	1894	Kelsey, F. D.	Penfield
Stereum fasciatum (Schwein.) Fr.	1894	Kelsey F. D.	Penfield

All 186 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms nearby

11 since 1994

The National Weather Service names Spencer in 11 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 4 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 flood. 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
February 2011	Flood	Spencer	$100,000	Heavy rain and rapid snow melt led to a rapid runoff and road flooding across Medina County Rainfall observation show 2-2.5 fell during the early morning hours of February 28th. Six to ten inches of heavy snow was on the ground at the onset of the rain. This snow rapidly melted as temperatures warmed into the 50s on the 28th. Up to an additional inch of water equivalent rainfall was released from the melted snow. Several people had be rescued from vehicles as the water came up. Some of the roads that were flooded were mainly in the cities of Medina and Wadsworth.
August 2007	Flash Flood	Spencer	$50,000	Heavy rain fell across the area during the morning hours of the 20th. Flash flooding quickly developed causing roads and highways to become flooded and closed. As many as thirty roads were closed throughout southern portions of the county. The hardest hit areas were Spencer and Westfield Townships. Granger Township, north of Wadsworth, was also hit hard with flash flooding with roads closed there. Rainfall reports from that morning include 3.87 inches of rain in Seville between 9 am and 10 am. In the City of Medina, between 4 am and 4 pm, 2.79 inches of rain fell.
May 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Spencer	$50,000	Thunderstorm winds downed several trees and heavily damaged a barn.
August 2023	Tornado (EF1)	Spencer	$20,000	A tornado with estimated peak winds of 90 mph impacted Spencer. The tornado began just east of Hunter Road and north of Chatham Road, where swirl marks were evident in cornfields. As the tornado moved southeastward, several trees were uprooted or snapped and a home experienced minor shingle damage. The tornado then dissipated soon after entering J.B. Firestone Memorial Park.
June 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Spencer	$5,000	Thunderstorm winds downed several large trees.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Spencer	$3,000	Thunderstorm winds downed one trees and a few large limbs in the Spencer area.
June 2009	Hail	Spencer	-	Penny size hail was observed.
April 2004	Hail	Spencer	-	Penny size hail was observed.
May 2004	Hail	Spencer	-	Penny size hail was observed.
August 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Spencer	-	no account filed
June 1994	Hail	Spencer	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Medina 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Centerville (historical)	1.0 miles	12
River Corners	1.6 miles	12
Pawnee	3.3 miles	12
Homer	3.8 miles	12
Risley (historical)	4.9 miles	11
Homerville	4.9 miles	12
Newtons (historical)	5.2 miles	12
Chatham	5.2 miles	12

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 Spencer	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1816661	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 1070945. 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.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

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.