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Carlton, Alabama

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1943 and the latest in 1986. It stands in the Walker Springs census division. It lies in ZIP code area 36545. The Survey maps it on the Carlton quadrangle. 46 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 171 feet above sea level.

Carlton within Clarke County

On record in Carlton

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Carlton fell from 65 to 46 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.

YearPeople Change
201065
202046-19 (-29%)

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

25 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Carlton between 1995 and 2020, burning about 340 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 3 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 burning9
Missing data/not specified/undetermined8
Natural4
Arson/incendiarism3
Misuse of fire by a minor1

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
20 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresAlabama Forestry CommissionSWR-20150920-001
6 July 1996Arson/incendiarism25 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
26 July 2000Naturalunder an acreAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
21 July 2000Natural3.0 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
9 June 2008Debris and open burning1.8 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
28 June 2006Natural70 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
14 June 2000Natural50 acresAlabama Forestry Commissionnot named
11 May 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreAlabama Forestry Commission20160511-4

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Clarke County

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Carlton: 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Bromine. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Lower Salt WorksBromineOccurrenceHalite

Every working recorded in Clarke County

Storms near this place

9 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Carlton in 9 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 4 hail, 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
April 2011Tornado (EF1)Carlton$102,000Aerial survey by Alabama Forestry Commission indicated a 300 to 600 yard wide path of trees snapped or blown over on the Fred T. Stimpson State Game Preserve. Several power poles and lines were snapped, and a storage shed was destroyed. The timber losses of large longleaf pine and slash pine were estimated to be close to 3 million dollars.
December 2002Thunderstorm WindCarlton$5,000High winds from a thunderstorm blew down a few trees near Carlton.
April 1998Thunderstorm WindCarlton$3,000Trees and power lines were blown down near Carlton.
March 2025Tornado (EF1)Carlton-An EF0 tornado began near Choctaw bluff tracking northeast tracking along the Alabama River. Sentinel and Planet satellite imagery revealed a narrow discontinuous path of tree damage, likely in the form of tree top snaps and/or uproots. This path tracks into the one building that sustained damage east of Walker Springs Road where some of the metal roofing material was removed towards the northwest. The tornado becomes untraceable after this point from satellite imagery, and will serve as the end point.||Utilized imagery and derived products made available through the NASA Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and the NASA Disasters Program.||Update May 15th, 2025: After further review of high-resolution satellite imagery that became available, it was determined this tornado began earlier to the south of Carlton where it was at its strongest point wiping out a large portion of forest west of Oil Well Road. Concentrated, weaker damage was evident all the way back to Belgreen Road which will serve as the starting point for this tornado. The intensity has been bumped to EF1 to match other corroborated ground and satellite survey tornadoes within the region. The tornadoes width was also increased to 240 yards which occurred back where it reached its peak intensity.
June 2023Thunderstorm WindCarlton-High winds capsized a tugboat on the Mobile River.
December 2014HailCarlton-Quarter size hail was reported in the town of Carlton.
January 1998HailCarlton-Dime size hail was reported just west of Carlton.
May 2003HailCarlton-no account filed
May 2003HailCarlton-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clarke 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
Choctaw Bluff4.3 miles12
Rockville5.3 miles12
Alma9.6 miles12
Gainestown10.7 miles7
Jackson11.7 miles8
Manila13.1 miles7
Barlow Bend13.6 miles7
Walker Springs13.9 miles8

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 CarltonAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1292078The 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 115626. 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.