BlockBefore

Palestine, Arkansas

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1940 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Prairie Township. It lies in ZIP code area 72372. The Survey maps it on the Palestine quadrangle. 506 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 210 feet above sea level.

Palestine within St. Francis County

Population over time

3 figures

Palestine fell from 741 to 506 between 2000 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
2000741
2010681-60 (-8%)
2020506-175 (-26%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

10 surveys from 14 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

14 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Palestine between 1998 and 2009, burning about 304 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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 burning8
Arson/incendiarism5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

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
28 September 1998Debris and open burning63 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
7 July 1998Arson/incendiarism29 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
25 July 2003Debris and open burning2.0 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
18 March 2006Debris and open burning2.0 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
14 March 2006Debris and open burning4.0 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
22 February 2000Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
18 November 1999Arson/incendiarism18 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named
5 October 2008Debris and open burning2.0 acresArkansas Forestry Commissionnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in St. Francis County

Storms near this place

13 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Palestine in 13 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 6 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 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
June 1994Thunderstorm WindPalestine$50,000Thunderstorm winds damaged a church.
February 2008Thunderstorm WindPalestine$5,000Straight line winds blew a car off a road, roughly 8 miles northwest of Palestine.
April 1999Thunderstorm WindPalestine$5,000Some power lines were knocked down.
August 2020Tornado (EF0)Palestine$3,000A tornado developed and crossed Highway 70 between Forrest City and Palestine.
May 2006HailPalestine$1,000no account filed
April 2003HailPalestine$750no account filed
May 1996HailPalestine$10no account filed
March 2025HailPalestine-Half dollar sized hail in Palestine.
April 2020Thunderstorm WindPalestine-Several trees knocked down in Palestine.
July 2009Flash FloodPalestine-Heavy rain produced flash flooding in Western St. Francis County. Several roads were flooded as a result.
June 2009Thunderstorm WindPalestine-Straight line winds damaged two metal buildings at the Diamond D Wrecker Service near Palestine. A few homes sustained shingle damage in the area. A few trees and power lines were knocked down in the area as well. Four power poles were knocked down.
April 2011HailPalestine-no account filed
May 2010HailPalestine-no account filed

Every storm recorded in St. Francis 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
Longino1.8 miles16
Slonikers Mill2.6 miles12
Becks2.9 miles16
Elcana3.3 miles16
Redfern3.8 miles16
Bryanville4.2 miles16
Poplar Grove5.2 miles16
Bonair6.1 miles16

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 PalestineAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q79491The 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 83241. 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.