BlockBefore

Harper, Texas

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1894 and the latest in 1985. It stands in the Harper census division. It lies in ZIP code area 78631. It lies near Rogers Draw. The Survey maps it on the Harper East quadrangle. 1,332 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 2,054 feet above sea level.

Harper within Gillespie County

Population over time

3 figures

Harper grew from 1,006 to 1,332 between 2000 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
20001,006
20101,192+186 (+18%)
20201,332+140 (+12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 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.

Fires near this place

63 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 63 fires within 5 miles of Harper between 2005 and 2020, burning about 2,782 acres in total. 4 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 burning37
Missing data/not specified/undetermined12
Equipment and vehicle use9
Natural4
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
30 September 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreTexas A & M Forest Service200 PEDERNALES TRAIL
3 September 2020Naturalunder an acreTexas A & M Forest Service1591WINDYRIDGEFIRE
21 September 2015Debris and open burning5.0 acresTexas A & M Forest Service13440 US HWY 479
13 September 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceUS 290 @ FLAG CREEK
30 August 2011Missing data/not specified/undetermined20 acresTexas A & M Forest ServiceAPACHE RD REKINDLE
21 August 2019Equipment and vehicle use15 acresTexas A & M Forest Service659 WINDY RIDGE
21 August 2018Natural26 acresTexas A & M Forest Service20985 W US 290
20 August 2018Natural5.0 acresTexas A & M Forest Service661 FIEDLER RD

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Gillespie County

Storms near this place

31 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Harper in 31 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 22 hail, 4 flash flood, 3 thunderstorm wind, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 1999Tornado (F3)Harper$1,000,000no account filed
May 2006HailHarper$100,000Golfball-sized hail dented vehicle bodies, broke windows of cars and homes in the Harper area.
May 1999Thunderstorm WindHarper$80,000no account filed
March 2025HailHarper-A thunderstorm produced two inch diameter hail just west of Harper.
June 2025Flash FloodHarper-Thunderstorms produced heavy rain that led to flash flooding. The Banta Branch of the Pedernales River was out of its banks southwest of Harper.
April 2016Thunderstorm WindHarper-A thunderstorm produced wind gusts estimated at 60 mph that knocked down some large trees.
August 2014Flash FloodHarper-Thunderstorms produced heavy rain that caused flash flooding. A low water crossing on Ranch Rd. 783 had approximately 1.5 feet of water over the roadway between Doss and Harper.
April 2008HailHarper-A resident along Jung Road reported hail.
March 2007Flash FloodHarper-The northern half of Gillespie County received from 2 to 3 inches of rain in general, with up to 4 inches in the area around Willow City. FM783 and FM965 were closed due to flash flooding through the late afternoon and early evening.
May 2007Tornado (EF0)Harper-A small tornado reported by a trained Skywarn spotter and chaser. The tornado touched down in an open area for about two minutes, then lifted and dissipated. No damage occurred.
April 2006HailHarper-Hail as large as baseballs broke windows in homes and windshields in cars between Harper and Doss. The hail also destroyed vegetable gardens and damaged up to 70 percent of the area peach crop.
October 2006Flash FloodHarper-Rainfall in the thunderstorms averaged between 2 and 3 inches over Gillespie County. The highest totals were 5 inches in Willow City in the northeast part of the county, as well as east of Harper in the west part of the county. SH16, FM965, and FM1376 were closed due to high water.
September 1993Thunderstorm WindHarper-Radio operators from the Hill Country Net reported trees down southeast of Harper.
October 1993HailHarper-HAM Radio operators reported half dollar-size hail in the western part of the County.
May 2016HailHarper-no account filed
May 2016HailHarper-no account filed
May 2016HailHarper-no account filed
April 2014HailHarper-no account filed
March 2013HailHarper-no account filed
March 2012HailHarper-no account filed
October 2009HailHarper-no account filed
April 2006HailHarper-no account filed
April 2006HailHarper-no account filed
April 2006HailHarper-no account filed
May 2006HailHarper-no account filed
April 2006HailHarper-no account filed
February 2005HailHarper-no account filed
February 2000HailHarper-no account filed
February 2000HailHarper-no account filed
May 1999HailHarper-no account filed
May 1999HailHarper-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Gillespie 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
Tivydale8.4 miles11
Doss11.7 miles11
Morris Ranch13.6 miles11
Hilltop16.1 miles11
Cherry Spring17.8 miles11
Cherry Mountain17.9 miles11
Fredericksburg19.8 miles12
Crabapple23.7 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 HarperAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q982154The 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 1374000. 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.