Forrest City Colored Cemetery

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

From the record

“Forrest City Cemetery, also known as City Colored Cemetery and Purifoy Cemetery, is a historic Black burial ground in Forrest City, Arkansas, United States. It is thought that this burial ground was founded around c. 1880, by members of the Spring Creek Baptist Church.”
Wikipedia article Forrest City Cemetery, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 16 National Register listings published here for St. Francis County · listed in 2021 · 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.
Address. SFC Rd. 702, south of AR 70, west of Margaret Dr., east of Union Pacific RR, Forrest, 72335
When was it listed? September 2021
Category. site
Township. Madison township
National Register reference number. 100007000 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

52 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 52 fires within 5 miles of Forrest City Colored Cemetery between 1997 and 2020, burning about 484 acres in total. None started naturally. 17 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 burning	20
Arson/incendiarism	17
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
3 September 2000	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
27 September 1999	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
13 September 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
18 August 1999	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
11 August 2000	Debris and open burning	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
7 July 1998	Arson/incendiarism	29 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
16 June 1998	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
17 May 2001	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in St. Francis County

Mines and quarries near this property

9 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Forrest City Colored Cemetery: 6 past producers, 3 producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Colvins Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Crisp Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Forrest City Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Forrest City Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Woods Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in St. Francis 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
Mann House	0.3 miles	1982
First United Methodist Church	0.7 miles	1994
Forrest City Public Library	0.7 miles	2022
Campbell House	0.7 miles	2006
Stuart Springs	0.8 miles	1977
Forrest City City Hall	0.8 miles	2022

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 100007000 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
St. Francis County	All 16 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.