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.
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
Isaac Nettles Gravestoneslisted 2000
Population over time
2 figuresCarlton 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 65 | |
| 2020 | 46 | -19 (-29%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 11 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.
- 1943 USGS Choctaw Bluff quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1946 USGS Choctaw Bluff quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1953 USGS Andalusia quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Andalusia quadrangle1:250000
- 1984 USGS Carlton quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Atmore quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
25 since 1995Regional 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 burning | 9 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 8 |
| Natural | 4 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 3 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 September 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | SWR-20150920-001 |
| 6 July 1996 | Arson/incendiarism | 25 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
| 26 July 2000 | Natural | under an acre | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
| 21 July 2000 | Natural | 3.0 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
| 9 June 2008 | Debris and open burning | 1.8 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
| 28 June 2006 | Natural | 70 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
| 14 June 2000 | Natural | 50 acres | Alabama Forestry Commission | not named |
| 11 May 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Alabama Forestry Commission | 20160511-4 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
1 within 5 milesRegional 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 | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower Salt Works | Bromine | Occurrence | Halite |
Storms near this place
9 since 1998Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2011 | Tornado (EF1) | Carlton | $102,000 | Aerial 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 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Carlton | $5,000 | High winds from a thunderstorm blew down a few trees near Carlton. |
| April 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Carlton | $3,000 | Trees and power lines were blown down near Carlton. |
| March 2025 | Tornado (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 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Carlton | - | High winds capsized a tugboat on the Mobile River. |
| December 2014 | Hail | Carlton | - | Quarter size hail was reported in the town of Carlton. |
| January 1998 | Hail | Carlton | - | Dime size hail was reported just west of Carlton. |
| May 2003 | Hail | Carlton | - | no account filed |
| May 2003 | Hail | Carlton | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choctaw Bluff | 4.3 miles | 12 | |
| Rockville | 5.3 miles | 12 | |
| Alma | 9.6 miles | 12 | |
| Gainestown | 10.7 miles | 7 | |
| Jackson | 11.7 miles | 8 | |
| Manila | 13.1 miles | 7 | |
| Barlow Bend | 13.6 miles | 7 | |
| Walker Springs | 13.9 miles | 8 |
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 Carlton | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1292078 | 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 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.





