Bell Center, Wisconsin

10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1924 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Bell Center Village. It lies in ZIP code area 54631. It lies near Dry Hollow. The Survey maps it on the Gays Mills quadrangle. 108 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 719 feet above sea level.

Bell Center within Crawford County

Population over time

2 figures

Bell Center fell from 117 to 108 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	117
2020	108	-9 (-8%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 10 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.

1924 USGS Gays Mills quadrangle1:62500
1926 USGS Gays Mills quadrangle1:62500
1958 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1961 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000
1965 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000
1966 USGS Gays Mills quadrangle1:62500
1976 USGS La Crosse quadrangle1:250000
1983 USGS Gays Mills quadrangle1:24000
1985 USGS Richland Center quadrangle1:100000

Fires near this place

53 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 53 fires within 5 miles of Bell Center between 1992 and 2020, burning about 97 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 7 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	32
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Arson/incendiarism	7
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
Natural	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
17 September 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
7 August 2003	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
3 July 2012	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	FRANK ROAD FIRE
16 July 2001	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
19 June 2005	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
19 June 2003	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
2 May 2009	Debris and open burning	4.9 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	TURKEY RIDGE FIRE
2 May 1996	Debris and open burning	12 acres	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Crawford County

Mines and quarries near this place

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Bell Center: 1 unknown, 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Judy Smith Quarry	Stone	Unknown
Edward Kraemer and Sons, Inc.	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Moran Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Crawford County

Storms near this place

27 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bell Center in 27 storm reports between 2008 and 2021: 21 flood, 3 hail, 1 flash flood, 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
August 2018	Flood	Bell Center	$8,500,000	Runoff from heavy rain created historic flooding along the Kickapoo River in Gays Mills. The river established a new crest of record at 22.31 feet, which was over 9 feet above the flood stage. The flooding continued into early September.
August 2016	Flash Flood	Bell Center	$40,000	One person had to be rescued near Steuben when an attempt to drive through flood waters caused the vehicle to be swept off the road. Runoff from heavy rain caused a mudslide to occur near Bell Center. The mudslide brought down trees and covered County Highway S. Other mudslides occurred west of Steuben and covered State Highway 179.
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Bell Center	$3,000	Several large trees were blown down in Gays Mills.
June 2021	Heavy Rain	Bell Center	-	Just northeast of Gays Mills, 8.47 inches of rain fell.
March 2019	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from melting snow caused flooding to occur along the Kickapoo River and other smaller streams. State Highway 171 between State Highway 27 and State Highway 131 in and west of Gays Mills and State Highway 131 at State Highway 60 northeast of Wauzeka were closed because of this flooding.
March 2019	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from rain and melting snow pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested over two feet above the flood stage at 15.54 feet on March 17th.
February 2019	Flood	Bell Center	-	An ice jam on the Kickapoo River caused flooding to occur in and around Gays Mills. The ice jam formed after temperatures warmed into the 40s during the early part of February. The river crested less than a half foot above the flood stage at 13.2 feet.
July 2019	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rains pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested over two and a half feet above the flood stage at 15.61 feet on the 21st.
September 2019	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested around a half foot above the flood stage at 13.55 feet on the 13th.
September 2019	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested less than a half foot above the flood stage at 13.33 feet on the 23rd.
May 2018	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested over two feet above the flood stage at 15.63 feet on the 5th.
September 2018	Flood	Bell Center	-	Flooding along the Kickapoo River in Gays Mills began in late August and with another round of heavy rain on September 3rd, continued until the 9th. The river crested over four feet above the flood stage at 17.57 feet on September 6th.
July 2017	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rains pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested just over five feet above the flood stage at 18.08 feet.
September 2016	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested around a foot and a half above the flood stage at 14.62 feet.
September 2016	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested just over five feet above the flood stage at 18.1 feet. The flooding caused the postponement of the Gays Mills Apple Festival until the first weekend in October.
August 2016	Flood	Bell Center	-	Flood waters from the Kickapoo River were about 1.5 feet over County Highway S near Bell Center.
August 2016	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested less than a foot above the flood stage at 13.73 feet.
December 2015	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rains pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested at 14.65 feet, which was around 1.5 feet over the flood stage.
June 2013	Flood	Bell Center	-	Runoff from heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills. The river crested around three and a half feet over flood stage at 16.63 feet.
March 2011	Flood	Bell Center	-	The combination of rainfall and melting snow pushed the Kickapoo River at Gays Mills out of its banks. The river exceeded the flood stage from the 22nd into the 27th. The river crested over a foot above the flood stage at 14.13 feet.
June 2011	Flood	Bell Center	-	Locally heavy rains across Crawford and Vernon Counties pushed the Kickapoo river at Gays Mills out of its banks from the 19th into the 21st. The river crested less than a foot over flood stage at 13.57 feet on the 19th.
June 2011	Hail	Bell Center	-	Leaves were shredded by golf ball size hail near Bell Center.
June 2010	Hail	Bell Center	-	Hail damaged apple trees on a farm near the city of Gays Mills.
August 2010	Flood	Bell Center	-	Locally heavy rains pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills from August 14th through the 18th. The river exceeded the flood stage by almost two and a half feet, cresting at 15.43 feet.
July 2010	Flood	Bell Center	-	Locally heavy rains pushed the Kickapoo River out of its banks in Gays Mills on July 8th. The river just exceeded the flood stage cresting at 13.05 feet.
June 2010	Flood	Bell Center	-	Heavy rain pushed the Kickapoo River to a few hundredths of a foot over flood stage in Gays Mills.
July 2008	Hail	Bell Center	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Crawford 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
Petersburg	1.5 miles	10
Gays Mills	2.0 miles	10
Barnum	5.1 miles	10
Rolling Ground	5.3 miles	10
Johnstown	5.5 miles	10
Mount Zion	5.5 miles	10
Mount Sterling	5.6 miles	10
Yankeetown	6.3 miles	10

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 Bell Center	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q919404	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 1561521. 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.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

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.