CENSUS BUREAU FINDS MISPLACED PRISON IN WISE COUNTY - AGENCY RECENTLY CORRECTED POPULATION COUNTS FOR 9 PLACES IN VA.

Ray Reed
Roanoke Times
June 15, 2002

Troutdale's prison inmates, who were the product of a U.S. Census Bureau mistake, are back in Wise County where they belong.< A little town in Grayson County, Troutdale has once again assumed its standing in the census tables as just that: a town of 194 people. 

The census bureau recently corrected its population counts for nine places in Virginia, including three counties in Southwest Virginia. 

The most noticeable adjustment was for Troutdale, where the census bureau deposited 1,036 state prison inmates in its original tables for the year 2000. 

Troutdale was credited with 1,230 people, an increase of 540 percent from 1990, even though it didn't have a prison to house the 1,036 inmates the census assigned there. 

Corrected figures show that Troutdale's population as of April 1, 2000, was up by two residents since 1990, the sort of growth residents had anticipated. 

Wise County, meanwhile, got a boost from the census corrections. 

With 2,086 inmates of Wallens Ridge and Red Onion prisons reassigned to the county, where the two supermax institutions actually are located, Wise County's population rose to 42,209. 

Russell County lost 1,050 residents to Wise County in the census corrections. 

While the original census tables assigned one prison's population to Troutdale, the other was assigned to Russell County - which, like Troutdale, does not have a prison. 

The changes mean Wise County grew 6.7 percent during the 1990s, which was the second-fastest growth in Southwest Virginia after Carroll County's 10 percent increase, attributed in large part to an influx of retirees. 

The mistakes occurred in a statistics category the census bureau calls group quarters, which also counts local jails, college dormitories, some hospitals and nursing homes. 

Group quarters data have accounted for most of the corrections issued by the census bureau in the past year. The original census tables will not be corrected. Statisticians using the census data will have to look at a new table called "errata" to make sure their counts are up to date. 

That gain of 2,086 prison residents may be enough to qualify Wise County to receive a few extra federal government dollars.