Howard County Population Growth

Some food for thought. Here are the US Census population totals for Howard County for the last century:

2005 Estimate: 269,457
2000: 247,842
1990: 187,328
1980: 118,572
1970: 61,911
1960: 36,152
1950: 23,119
1940: 17,175
1930: 16,169
1920: 15,826
1910: 16,106
1900: 16,715

The population size was relatively constant around 16,000 people until the 1940s. Starting in the 1950s the population started to climb. From 1950 to 2000 the population increased more than tenfold. In 1980 the population of the county as a whole was only slightly larger than Columbia is today (Columbia’s population is currently about 100,000).