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

White Oak, Ohio

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1917 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Pike Township. It lies in ZIP code area 45154. It stands on Flat Run. The Survey maps it on the Mount Orab quadrangle.

White Oak within Brown County

Then and now

1917 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 69 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of White Oak, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of White Oak, surveyed 1917

Topographic sheets covering this place

13 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

18,904 words on this township

The History of Brown County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County ... General and Local Statistics; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio; Map of Brown County; Constitution of the United States .., published 1883 names this settlement in its chapter on Pike Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

This was surveyed about 1836 by Williams Bros., of Cincinnati, and Samuel K. Stivers. The general direction of this road is along the course of the old road that connected the above-named places, and which was the first public highway through this section. Although the necessary funds were raised by the people of Eagle Township to complete this turnpike through it, yet, by some " crookedness, " or misapplication of the money, the people in this and Jackson Township, also those in White Oak and Concord Townships, in Highland County, were " left in the mud."

Passage source: The History of Brown County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County ... General and Local Statistics; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio; Map of Brown County; Constitution of the United States .., published 1883.

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 Pike Township - it names this place 1 more 1 time.

Fires near this place

2 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of White Oak between 2002 and 2019, burning about 3 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
Recreation and ceremony	1
Fireworks	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
8 August 2002	Recreation and ceremony	2.0 acres	Ohio State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
19 May 2019	Fireworks	1.0 acres	Ohio Department of Natural Resources	15202

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Brown County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 249 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 249 specimens collected within 10 miles of White Oak between 1886 and 1974: 156 Animalia, 83 Fungi, 10 Plantae. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A JOHN, A. B. Seymour, A. Braun 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
Hirneola auricularis (Gray) Donk	1903	Blickle, A.H.	Brown County, Ohio
Puccinia lateripes Berk. & Ravenel	1916	A. B. Seymour
Caloptilia speciosella (Braun, 1939)	1929	A. Braun	[Not Stated]
Chordata	1886	Smithsonian Institution
Equisetum hyemale L.	1897	Kreke, Fr. M.	Arnheim
Uromyces phaseoli G.Winter	1905	Stephens J.	Mt. Orab
Perenniporia robiniophila (Murrill) Ryvarden	1909	J. P. Tracy
Anaptychia palmulata (Michx.) Vain.	1923	Braun, E. Lucy	White Oak Creek
Peltigera praetextata (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Zopf	1923	Braun, E. Lucy	White Oak
Usnea subfloridana Stirt.	1923	Braun, E. Lucy	White Oak
Lobaria pulmonaria (L.) Hoffm.	1924	Braun, E. Lucy	Sardinia
Sticta fuliginosa (With.) Ach.	1924	Braun, E. Lucy	Sardinia

All 249 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this place

4 since 2010

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names White Oak in 4 storm reports between 2010 and 2024: 2 flood, 1 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind. 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
May 2010	Tornado (EF1)	White Oak	$10,000	The tornado touched down in the vicinity of Highway 32 and Klein Road in Brown County. The tornado crossed into Highland County just west of Sicily Road. The tornado lifted in Highland County near Highway 321, southeast of Buford. The worst damage occurred to a residence on Sicily Road in Highland County. A section of roofing was removed from part of the home, the front porch supports were lifted and removed, numerous trees were uprooted near the residence, and a piece of wood was driven into decking material. Several other barns and outbuildings were destroyed or heavily damaged along the path. Based on the damage caused by this tornado, wind speeds were estimated at 100 miles per hour. The tornado was in Brown County from 0544 PM EST until 0545 PM EST. The tornado continued in Highland County from 0545 PM EST until 0553 PM EST.
June 2017	Flood	White Oak	$5,000	Water rescues were performed when two vehicles were submerged at Buford-Bardwell and Klein Roads.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	White Oak	$4,000	A few trees were downed.
September 2020	Flood	White Oak	-	Water was reported on a roadway.

Every storm recorded in Brown 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
Mount Orab	2.4 miles	13
Bardwell	3.2 miles	13
Sardinia	3.7 miles	13
Brownstown	3.7 miles	11
New Hope	4.0 miles	10
Shiloh	4.8 miles	10
Greenbush	4.8 miles	13
Bodman	5.1 miles	13

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 White Oak	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q22673259	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 1063091. 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.

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.