J.T. Murphy No 1 Crater

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

From the record

“Murphy No. 1 Crater is the site of a historic oil-drilling accident near Norphlet, Arkansas, United States. The site is located about 3 miles (4.8 km) north and west of Norphlet, off Firetower Road about 3/4 mile (1.21 km) north of its junction with Baugh Street.”
Wikipedia article J.T. Murphy No 1 Crater, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 40 National Register listings published here for Union County · listed in 2008 · category: Site.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Murphy, J.T., No 1 Crater - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. Firetower Rd. 3/4 mi. N. of Jct. with Baugh St., Norphlet, 71762
When was it listed? January 2008
Category. site
Township. Norphlet township
National Register reference number. 07001435 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

166 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 166 fires within 5 miles of J.T. Murphy No 1 Crater between 1997 and 2020, burning about 1,108 acres in total. 8 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	80
Debris and open burning	30
Arson/incendiarism	25
Equipment and vehicle use	16
Natural	8
Misuse of fire by a minor	4
Smoking	3

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
8 September 1998	Misuse of fire by a minor	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
5 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
3 September 2005	Arson/incendiarism	30 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
28 September 1997	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
24 September 2011	Arson/incendiarism	6.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
21 September 2004	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
19 September 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
19 September 2007	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Union County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of J.T. Murphy No 1 Crater: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Unk	Clay	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Union County

Storms near this property

12 since 2009

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Norphlet, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 2009 and 2023: 4 flash flood, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 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
April 2011	Tornado (EF1)	Norphlet	$150,000	The National Weather Service conducted a storm survey in Union County Arkansas and concluded that storm damage was the result of an EF1 tornado. The tornado touched down at around 10:12 AM, in the town of Norphlet. An old gas station cover was blown down and several trees were snapped along Black street eastward across Hayes St. Some minor roof damage occurred to homes along Hayes street. The tornado continued eastward crossing N Tate Road where a carport collapsed on a vehicle and several trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado continued along the south side of Tate Road snapping trees and peeling shingles from several homes. The tornado lifted east of a pasture where several hardwood and softwood trees were snapped or uprooted. A small metal outbuilding suffered structural damage as well. Maximum winds are estimated at 90-100 mph.
January 2023	Tornado (EF1)	Norphlet	$25,000	An EF-1 tornado with estimated maximum winds near 105 mph touched down about 3 miles southwest of Norphlet, just southwest of the intersection of Murphy Loop and Shady Grove Road. The tornado tracked northeast over the span of approximately one minute, snapping and uprooting several hardwood and softwood trees and causing minor damage to structures resulting mainly from the impacts of the fallen trees. The damage path ended just to the southeast of the intersection of Shady Grove Road, Murphy Loop, and Burchfield Road.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Norphlet	-	Large tree limbs and power lines were downed across Highway 335 in the Norphlet community.
July 2022	Heavy Rain	Norphlet	-	A personal rain gauge in Norphlet measured a storm total rainfall of 9.12 inches.
July 2022	Flash Flood	Norphlet	-	Multiple pictures were posted to social media of portions of the 300-400 block of North Tate Street and the 500-600 block of East Padgett Street in Norphlet were washed out. A personal electronic rain gauge in Norphlet measured 9.12 inches of rain from this event.
July 2022	Flash Flood	Norphlet	-	High water entered multiple buildings on West Hillsboro Street in El Dorado. Numerous roads were flooded throughout the city.
April 2019	Flash Flood	Norphlet	-	A video posted to Facebook indicated that multiple roads were flooded in El Dorado.
April 2019	Flash Flood	Norphlet	-	Numerous streets were flooded across El Dorado. Report via social media.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Norphlet	-	Trees were downed in Norphlet and along Hwy. 7 near Seven Brothers Road.
May 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Norphlet	-	A large tree was blown down across Mount Holly Road near the intersection of Hwy. 335.
May 2009	Flood	Norphlet	-	Major flooding developed on the Ouachita River in southern Arkansas with stages comparable to those of March of 2001. Felsenthal Lock and Dam crested at a pool stage of 84.3 feet during May 23rd, the fifth highest crest of record. Downstream on the Ouachita River, moderate flooding developed at Monroe, Louisiana with a crest comparable to that of March of 2001. One event to note that during the morning hours of May 24th, two levee breaches developed near the Louisiana - Arkansas state line at the Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. Stages receded dramatically some eight inches in some eight hours from Felsenthal, Arkansas downstream through Sterlington, Louisiana. The Ouachita River flooding required considerable relocation of livestock and cut off some homes near the Wildlife Refuge and near Monroe, Louisiana. Roads that had to be closed included Hamilton Lake, Moon Lake, Horseshoe Lake, Old Wall Lake Road, Bayou D'Arbonne Drive, Kent Drive, Jones Road, Browder Road, Philpot Road and Kins Lake Road/Austin Bend. Overall...the flooding in May across all of southern and southwest Arkansas will be remembered by many. The governer of the state included 5 southern Arkansas counties a disaster area which would allow these counties to receive money from the Federal Government. These counties included Little River, Hempstead, Miller, Lafayette, and Union counties.
April 2014	Hail	Norphlet	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Union 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

5 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
Smackover Historic Commercial District	3.6 miles	1990
D. McDonald House	3.6 miles	1990
Oakland	6.6 miles	2019
Henley-Riley Historic District	7.4 miles	2017
Emon and Mabel Mahony House	7.9 miles	2026

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 07001435 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Union County	All 40 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.