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Cottonwood, Arizona

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1892 and the latest in 1984. It stands in the Chinle census division. It lies in ZIP code area 86503. It lies near Tabahinez Mesa. The Survey maps it on the Toadindaaska Mesa quadrangle. 167 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 6,069 feet above sea level.

Cottonwood within Apache County

Population over time

2 figures

Cottonwood fell from 226 to 167 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010226
2020167-59 (-26%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 surveys from 14 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.

Fires near this place

5 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Cottonwood between 1994 and 2019, burning about 16 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 1 was 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
Natural2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Arson/incendiarism1
Debris and open burning1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
2 July 2005Missing data/not specified/undetermined14 acresNavajo Region Fire and Aviation ManagementCOTTONWOOD
25 June 2006Debris and open burning1.0 acresNavajo Region Fire and Aviation ManagementBLUE GAP 02
24 June 2001Naturalunder an acreNavajo Region Fire and Aviation ManagementCOTTONWOOD
20 June 1994Naturalunder an acreNavajo Region Fire and Aviation ManagementCRYSTAL
13 June 2019Arson/incendiarismunder an acreNavajo Region Fire and Aviation ManagementCOTTONWOOD 1

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Apache County

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Cottonwood: 1 occurrence. 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 SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Unidentified Clay DepositClayOccurrence

Every working recorded in Apache County

Storms near this place

3 since 2010

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cottonwood in 3 storm reports between 2010 and 2018: 2 flash flood, 1 tornado. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2018Flash FloodCottonwood-Flash flooding one mile east of the Blue Gap Store badly damaged Highway 4.
August 2010Flash FloodCottonwood-Heavy rain and flooding made Route 4 impassable due to high water between mile marker 40 and 43.
October 2010Tornado (EF0)Cottonwood-A tornado was observed touching down between Cottonwood and Blue Gap. Trees and bushes were knocked down.

Every storm recorded in Apache 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Salina3.7 miles14
Blue Gap7.3 miles14
Tahchee10.7 miles14
Coyote Springs16.0 miles14
Tsintaa Yiti Ii17.6 miles16
Flat Rock18.4 miles15
Chinle18.9 miles15
Junction Overlook21.6 miles17

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on CottonwoodAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q5790247The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 3304. 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.

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.