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Cotton Plant, Arkansas

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1935 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Cotton Plant Township. It lies in ZIP code area 72036. The Survey maps it on the Cotton Plant quadrangle. 529 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 194 feet above sea level.

Cotton Plant within Woodruff County

On record in Cotton Plant

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 2 records

Population over time

2 figures

Cotton Plant fell from 649 to 529 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
2010649
2020529-120 (-18%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 13 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

4 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Cotton Plant between 2001 and 2014, burning about 31 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was 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 burning2
Recreation and ceremony1
Arson/incendiarism1

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
24 April 2014Recreation and ceremony8.0 acresCache River National Wildlife RefugeWOODRUFF 935 FIRE
8 March 2006Debris and open burning15 acresCache River National Wildlife RefugeHWY 306 FIRE
21 March 2001Debris and open burningunder an acreCentral Arkansas Refuges ComplexTRACT 295
22 January 2003Arson/incendiarism8.3 acresCache River National Wildlife RefugeHWY 306

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Woodruff County

Storms near this place

17 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cotton Plant in 17 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 9 thunderstorm wind, 7 hail, 1 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 2025Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Multiple trees were blown down in the town of Cotton Plant.
January 2020Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Trees were blown down.
April 2017Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Reports of power lines and trees down in southern Woodruff County south of County Road 306.
July 2008Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Trees were down on Arkansas Highway 17.
December 2002Tornado (F1)Cotton Plant-A weak tornado initially touched down 1.8 miles west-southwest of Cotton Plant, tracked through the city of Cotton Plant, and lifted 3.3 miles northeast of Cotton Plant. The tornado damaged the roof of a cotton gin and a large nearby metal building was destroyed. A number of homes suffered damage, mainly due to shingles being blown off and trees falling onto them. Several mobile homes were damaged, including one that was overturned against a tree. The facade of several downtown buildings were torn off. A number of headstones on graves at a local cemetery were overturned.
March 2002Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Several buildings in Cotton Plant sustained roof damage.
July 1997Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Thunderstorm winds destroyed a storage building.
July 1995Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-Some large trees limbs were blown down.
December 2015HailCotton Plant-no account filed
May 2003HailCotton Plant-no account filed
February 2001Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-no account filed
June 2001HailCotton Plant-no account filed
April 1998HailCotton Plant-no account filed
July 1997HailCotton Plant-no account filed
March 1996Thunderstorm WindCotton Plant-no account filed
April 1996HailCotton Plant-no account filed
July 1995HailCotton Plant-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Woodruff 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
McGregor1.5 miles13
Shady Grove3.3 miles13
Four Forks3.8 miles13
Becton3.9 miles13
Casey3.9 miles13
Daggett4.1 miles13
Maberry4.1 miles13
Cow Mound (historical)5.8 miles13

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 Cotton PlantAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2451171The 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 76683. 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.

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.