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.
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
Cotton Plant Commercial Historic Districtlisted 2008
Cotton Plant Water Towerlisted 2008
Population over time
2 figuresCotton 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 649 | |
| 2020 | 529 | -120 (-18%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 13 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.
- 1935 USGS Gregory quadrangle1:62500
- 1953 USGS Memphis quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1956 USGS Memphis quadrangle1:250000
- 1957 USGS Gregory quadrangle1:62500
- 1968 USGS Cotton Plant quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1972 USGS Gregory quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1986 USGS Searcy quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
4 since 2001Regional 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 burning | 2 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 April 2014 | Recreation and ceremony | 8.0 acres | Cache River National Wildlife Refuge | WOODRUFF 935 FIRE |
| 8 March 2006 | Debris and open burning | 15 acres | Cache River National Wildlife Refuge | HWY 306 FIRE |
| 21 March 2001 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Central Arkansas Refuges Complex | TRACT 295 |
| 22 January 2003 | Arson/incendiarism | 8.3 acres | Cache River National Wildlife Refuge | HWY 306 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
17 since 1995Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Multiple trees were blown down in the town of Cotton Plant. |
| January 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Trees were blown down. |
| April 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Reports of power lines and trees down in southern Woodruff County south of County Road 306. |
| July 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Trees were down on Arkansas Highway 17. |
| December 2002 | Tornado (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 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Several buildings in Cotton Plant sustained roof damage. |
| July 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Thunderstorm winds destroyed a storage building. |
| July 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | Some large trees limbs were blown down. |
| December 2015 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| May 2003 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| February 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| April 1998 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| July 1997 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| March 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| April 1996 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | no account filed |
| July 1995 | Hail | Cotton Plant | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| McGregor | 1.5 miles | 13 | |
| Shady Grove | 3.3 miles | 13 | |
| Four Forks | 3.8 miles | 13 | |
| Becton | 3.9 miles | 13 | |
| Casey | 3.9 miles | 13 | |
| Daggett | 4.1 miles | 13 | |
| Maberry | 4.1 miles | 13 | |
| Cow Mound (historical) | 5.8 miles | 13 |
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 Plant | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2451171 | 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 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.






