Elmwood Cemetery

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

From the record

“Elmwood Cemetery, also known historically as the Poor Farm Cemetery, is a historic cemetery at Zero and South 24th Streets in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Established in 1891, it is on the grounds of Sebastian County's first poor farm, purchased by the county in 1890.”
Wikipedia article Elmwood Cemetery (Fort Smith, Arkansas), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 64 National Register listings published here for Sebastian County · listed in 2018 · category: Site.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. SW of intersection of Zero & S 24th Sts., Fort Smith, 72901
When was it listed? January 2018
Category. site
Township. Upper township
National Register reference number. 100002004 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

11 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 11 fires within 5 miles of Elmwood Cemetery between 1993 and 2017, burning about 74 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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	5
Debris and open burning	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
Equipment and vehicle use	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
15 September 2011	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
12 September 2012	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
3 August 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
9 July 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
4 July 2012	Arson/incendiarism	12 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
27 June 2011	Equipment and vehicle use	32 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
12 April 1998	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
15 March 2004	Arson/incendiarism	16 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Sebastian County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Elmwood Cemetery: 5 past producers, 3 producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Clay, Aggregate, Light Weight. 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
Rescolite Company	Aggregate, Light Weight	Past Producer
Fort Smith Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Unknown Shale Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Unknown Shale Pit	Clay	Past Producer
General Inn Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Jeffrey Sand Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Preston Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unknown Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Sebastian County

Storms near this property

19 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fort Smith, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 1993 and 1995: 13 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind. 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 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Smith	$50,000	Numerous trees were blown down.
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Smith	$5,000	Several trees were knocked down near the Fort Smith Airport.
June 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Smith	$5,000	Thunderstorm winds downed a light pole onto I-540.
May 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Smith	$5,000	Thunderstorm winds knocked down a few trees.
June 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Smith	$4,000	no account filed
April 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	An isolated severe thunderstorm produced dime size hail in Fort Smith.
May 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	Severe thunderstorms moved through northwest Arkansas during the late evening of May 7th. Strong thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines in Cherokee City and in Sulphur Springs, and trees were also blown down in Hiawasse. Strong thunderstorm winds blew down telephone lines in Eureka Springs, and large tree branches were blown down by 60 mile an hour winds in Huntsville. Nickel-size hail fell at Fort Smith and at Greenwood, and dime-size hail fell two miles west of Lincoln.
May 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
June 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
March 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1995	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1994	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
March 1993	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1993	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Smith	-	no account filed
April 1993	Hail	Fort Smith	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Sebastian 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
Oscar Chambers House	0.7 miles	2016
Dr. Neil Crow Sr. House	2.6 miles	2018
Christ the King Church	2.6 miles	1982
Robert Wanslow House	2.7 miles	2018
Oak Cemetery	3.0 miles	1995
Dodson Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church	3.1 miles	2006

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 100002004 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Sebastian County	All 64 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.