Valley Mills, Texas
16 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1892 and the latest in 1985. It stands in the Valley Mills census division. It lies in ZIP code area 76689. It lies near Thompson Hollow. The Survey maps it on the Valley Mills quadrangle. 1,229 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 594 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresValley Mills grew from 1,203 to 1,229 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 1,203 | |
| 2020 | 1,229 | +26 (+2%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 16 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1892 USGS Waco quadrangle1:125000, 6 printings
- 1920 USGS Waco quadrangle1:125000
- 1931 USGS Valley Mills quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1954 USGS Waco quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Waco quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Valley Mills quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1985 USGS Waco quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Photographs
3 photographs, 2014Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.
Highsmith, Carol M, 2014. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2014. Library of Congress
Highsmith, Carol M, 2014. Library of Congress
Fires near this place
168 since 2005Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 168 fires within 5 miles of Valley Mills between 2005 and 2020, burning about 1,389 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 2 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 91 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 31 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 26 |
| Natural | 6 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 6 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 3 |
| Smoking | 3 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 2 |
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 September 2015 | Debris and open burning | 7.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | TRAILER PARK |
| 7 September 2017 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | MARROW #2 |
| 7 September 2006 | Equipment and vehicle use | 40 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 6 September 2017 | Debris and open burning | 10 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | EAST MIDDLE BOSQUE@HWY317 |
| 6 September 2017 | Equipment and vehicle use | 8.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | MARROW |
| 6 September 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 25 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | 155-17 |
| 6 September 2017 | Debris and open burning | 10 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | ZWICKEY |
| 6 September 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | POSTON |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
21 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Valley Mills in 21 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 8 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 4 tornado, 2 flash 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2001 | Tornado (F1) | Valley Mills | $30,000 | The initial touchdown was near the Mosheim community. The tornado moved east northeast for 1.5 miles before dissipating. One mobile home was destroyed, several buildings had roof damage, and trees were uprooted. |
| October 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | $25,000 | Several homes were damaged and trees and powerlines were blown down. |
| October 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | $15,000 | Thunderstorms winds damaged the roof of a house and the roof of a barn. A tree was also uprooted. |
| April 2023 | Hail | Valley Mills | $7,000 | Golf ball sized hail was reported at Highway 6 and FM 854 west of Valley Mills. |
| May 2010 | Hail | Valley Mills | $4,000 | HAM radio operators reported golfball sized hail at Valley Mills High School. |
| December 2006 | Tornado (F0) | Valley Mills | $2,000 | The National Weather Service in Fort Worth conducted a damage survey and found that a brief tornado formed northwest of Valley Mills and caused damage to trees along County Road 3310. |
| August 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | $1,000 | Large tree limbs fell onto power lines, causing power outages. |
| June 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | $500 | A tree was blown down on Highway 6 near Valley Mills. |
| June 2014 | Hail | Valley Mills | - | Penny sized hail was reported near Valley Mills. |
| February 2001 | Flash Flood | Valley Mills | - | A high water rescue was performed on the Bosque/McLennan county line. A school bus with 4 persons was stranded in high water. |
| October 2001 | Tornado (F0) | Valley Mills | - | The second tornado to hit the county touched down 1.5 miles west of Valley Mills and moved east northeast for two miles before dissipating 0.5 miles north of Valley Mills. The damage was confined to trees. |
| March 1998 | Tornado (F0) | Valley Mills | - | A brief tornado touchdown was reported. |
| May 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | - | A tree was blown down by strong winds. |
| May 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | - | A tree was uprooted by high winds. |
| March 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
| May 2003 | Hail | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
| December 2002 | Hail | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
| March 2000 | Hail | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Hail | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
| May 1999 | Hail | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
| February 1997 | Flash Flood | Valley Mills | - | no account filed |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rock Springs | 3.5 miles | 16 | |
| Pendell | 5.2 miles | 12 | |
| Mosheim | 7.1 miles | 12 | |
| Cayote | 7.6 miles | 15 | |
| Greenock | 10.0 miles | 16 | |
| Clifton | 10.1 miles | 12 | |
| Crossroad Store | 11.5 miles | 12 | |
| Womack | 12.3 miles | 15 |
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 Valley Mills | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q976039 | 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 1376565. 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.






