Cotter Water Tower

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

From the record

“The Cotter water tower is a historic elevated steel water tower located in Cotter, Arkansas. It was constructed in 1935 by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company, as part of the development of the local water supply system by the Public Works Administration.”
Wikipedia article Cotter water tower, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 25 National Register listings published here for Baxter County · listed in 2007 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. NE of jct. of NE US 62B and State St., Cotter, 72626
When was it listed? January 2007
Category. structure
Also known as. New Deal Recovery Efforts in Arkansas MPS
District. District 10
National Register reference number. 06001280 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

44 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 44 fires within 5 miles of Cotter Water Tower between 1997 and 2020, burning about 403 acres in total. None started naturally. 13 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	13
Debris and open burning	13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	12
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Recreation and ceremony	1
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
30 September 1999	Equipment and vehicle use	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
1 September 2005	Arson/incendiarism	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
4 August 2005	Arson/incendiarism	10 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
2 August 2011	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
15 August 2012	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
10 August 2012	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
4 July 2001	Misuse of fire by a minor	5.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
31 July 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Baxter County

Mines and quarries near this property

6 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Cotter Water Tower: 2 producers, 2 unknowns, 1 past producer, 1 occurrence. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Corbin Iron Deposit	Iron	Occurrence
Flippin Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Kenneth Mcdowell Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Marion County Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unk	Stone	Unknown
Unknown Quarry	Stone	Unknown

Every working recorded in Baxter County

Storms near this property

12 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cotter, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1996 and 2015: 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 flash flood, 1 tornado. The reports record 1 death and 35 injuries. 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
February 2008	Tornado (EF2)	Cotter	1 killed, 35 hurt, $15,750,000	The tornado moved from Marion County, north-northeast of Rea Valley, into Baxter County, just east-southeast of Cotter. A survey by the Red Cross indicated 21 houses were destroyed, 23 suffered major damage, 35 had minor damage, and 147 others were affected. In addition, 9 mobile homes were destroyed, 12 suffered major damage, 10 had minor damage, and 10 others were affected. One fatality occurred in a mobile home park. Most of the residential structures were in the area around Gassville. A number of businesses in Gassville, along U.S. Highway 62/412, were damaged. Numerous trees, power lines, and power poles were blown down. The tornado dissipated before reaching Mountain Home.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	$2,000	Several trees were blown down.
August 2006	Flash Flood	Cotter	-	Heavy rains produced localized flash flooding near Cotter, where several county roads were impassible due to high water levels.
January 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	-	Thunderstorm winds downed a large tree at Cotter.
August 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	-	Several large trees were blown down onto a house. The house sustained minor damage.
April 2015	Hail	Cotter	-	no account filed
July 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	-	no account filed
April 2003	Hail	Cotter	-	no account filed
August 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	-	no account filed
June 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	-	no account filed
March 1996	Hail	Cotter	-	no account filed
March 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Cotter	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Baxter County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Cotter High School Gymnasium, Old	0.5 miles	1995
Cotter Bridge	0.9 miles	1990
Cotter Bridge	1.1 miles	1990
Rollins Hospital	2.0 miles	2007
Buford School Building	6.0 miles	1992
Big Spring	6.2 miles	2025

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 06001280 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Baxter County	All 25 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.