Smithville, Arkansas

15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1952 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Sulphur Township. It lies in ZIP code area 71834. The Survey maps it on the Doddridge SE quadrangle.

Smithville within Miller County

On record in Smithville

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 within a mile 1 record

The National Register names another town for these. They stand within one mile of this settlement's coordinate.

Kiblah Schoollisted 1989 · 0.1 miles away

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 15 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.

1952 USGS Doddridge SE quadrangle1:24000, 4 printings
1953 USGS El Dorado quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1957 USGS El Dorado quadrangle1:250000
1958 USGS El Dorado quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
1960 USGS El Dorado quadrangle1:250000
1986 USGS Magnolia quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1989 USGS El Dorado quadrangle1:250000

Fires near this place

87 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 87 fires within 5 miles of Smithville between 1997 and 2019, burning about 983 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 25 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
Arson/incendiarism	25
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	23
Debris and open burning	22
Equipment and vehicle use	7
Natural	6
Smoking	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	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
7 September 2012	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 2012	Arson/incendiarism	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
5 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
5 September 2011	Equipment and vehicle use	277 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	MILLER-LA
4 September 2011	Smoking	58 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
30 September 1999	Arson/incendiarism	4.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
24 September 2011	Natural	40 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Miller County

Storms near this place

1 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Smithville in 1 storm report in 2015: 1 flood. 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
June 2015	Flood	Smithville	$191,000	Excessive heavy rainfall during the month of May resulted in very high water on the Red River bordering Little River, Hempstead, Miller and Lafayette Counties in Southwest Arkansas as well as Bowie County in Northeast Texas during the entire month of June. Rainfall amounts during the month of May across the Upper and Middle Red River basins of Southern Oklahoma and Northern Texas totaled over 20 inches of rain. The Oklahoma state climatologist reported that May of 2015 was the all time wettest month of any month in state history. Lake Texhoma, a flood control reservoir to the Red River upstream of Arthur City, Texas rose to its highest pool stage on record early on June 1st at 645.66 feet with peak releases of around 140,000 CFS. The Muddy Boggy Creek tributary to the Red River rose to near its flood of record cresting near 55 feet earlier on May 29th with inflows upwards of 70,000 CFS into the Red River. Muddy Boggy Creek crested just shy of the 1990 flood of record with 55.27 feet near Unger, Oklahoma. Other tributaries of the Red River also crested at very high levels during the final week of May and early in June, 2015 below Lake Texhoma including Bois D'Arc and Bokchito Creeks. Finally the Kiamichi River at Hugo Reservoir crested just below a new pool stage record after May 25th and contributed peak releases of near 60,000 CFS as well to the Red River. This excessive heavy rainfall and inflow into the Red River resulted in river levels that eclipsed the flood of May of 1990 at Pecan Point and was just shy of the Red River flood of May of 1908 at Pecan Point. The Red River at Pecan Point north of Dekalb, Texas went above the 24 foot flood stage on May 10th, 2015 and remained above that flood stage through the entire month of June and did not fall below flood stage until until July, 2015. The Red River at Pecan Point north of Dekalb, Texas went above the 30 foot major flood stage on May 24th, 2015 and crested at a stage of 35.0 feet on June 2nd, 2015. This is the 3rd highest crest in recorded history at the gauging location, eclipsed only by the flood of record of 36.0 feet in 1938 and 35.5 feet in 1908. The river fell below the 30 foot major flood stage on June 10th. A secondary rise on the Red River developed because of excessive heavy rainfall once again in the middle Red River Basin from the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill. As a result, the Red River at Pecan Point north of Dekalb, Texas went back above the 30 foot major flood stage on June 22nd and crested at a stage of 32.5 feet on June 24th. The Red River then fell below the 30 foot major flood stage on June 28th. Below Pecan Point north of Dekalb, Texas, the Red River at Index, Arkansas crested at 31.4 feet on June 3rd. This was the 3rd highest flood at Index, Arkansas in recorded history at the gauging location, eclipsed only by the flood of record of 34.4 feet in 1938 and 32.3 feet in 1990. The river fell below the 28 foot major flood stage on June 8th. A secondary rise on the Red River developed because of excessive heavy rainfall once again in the middle Red River Basin from the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill. As a result, the Red River at Index, Arkansas crested again at 26.6 feet on June 27th and fell below the 25 foot flood stage on June 29th. Below Index, Arkansas, the Red River at Fulton, Arkansas crested at 32.12 feet on June 5th. This was the 11th highest flood at Fulton, Arkansas in recorded history at the gauging location with the record crest of 37.40 having occurred in 1945. The river fell below the 27 foot flood stage on June 10th. A secondary rise on the Red River developed because of excessive heavy rainfall once again in the middle Red River Basin from the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill. As a result, the Red River at Fulton, Arkansas crested again at 25.1 feet on June 27th which was nearly two feet short of the 27 foot flood stage at Fulton, Arkansas. Bank erosion was extreme on the Miller County side of the Red River with thousands of acres of farmland and pastureland inundated. Monetary damage from the agricultural land inundated was $840,000. Hundreds of head of cattle had to be relocated. There were 26 homes damaged by the flooding totaling $191,000 in damages. The United States Highway 259 bridge, Hwy 8 bridge and the Hwy. 71 bridge going over the Red River were closed. Mandatory, emergency evacuations were ordered by the Miller County Emergency Management officials for the small community of Garland City, Arkansas. Backwater flooding was excessive in the community and the Army Corps of Engineers found a weak spot in the city's levee leading to the mandatory, emergency evacuation of the town. The river runs close to the small town of about 240 residents. A Federal Disaster Declaration was issued for Little River and Miller Counties in Southwest Arkansas for the Red River flooding event of 2015.

Every storm recorded in Miller 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Kiblah	1.5 miles	16
Spring Bank (historical)	2.6 miles	15
Doddridge	3.4 miles	16
Black Diamond	6.1 miles	15
Capps City	6.2 miles	16
Era (historical)	6.5 miles	16
Fort Lynn	7.7 miles	15
Brightstar	7.7 miles	16

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 58645. 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.