Snowflake, Arizona
15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1980. It stands in the Snowflake census division. It lies in ZIP code area 85937. It stands on Cottonwood Wash. The Survey maps it on the Snowflake quadrangle. 6,104 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 5,682 feet above sea level.
On record in Snowflake
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 7 records
James M. Flake Houselisted 1971
John A. Freeman Houselisted 1980
John R. Hulet Houselisted 1980
Jesse N. Smith Houselisted 1971
Snowflake Stake Academy Buildinglisted 1980
Snowflake Townsite Historic Districtlisted 1998
Stinson-Flake Houselisted 1982
Population over time
2 figuresSnowflake grew from 5,590 to 6,104 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 5,590 | |
| 2020 | 6,104 | +514 (+9%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
8 surveys from 15 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1886 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:250000
- 1893 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1954 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:250000
- 1960 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:250000
- 1970 USGS Snowflake quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1980 USGS Holbrook quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
46 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 46 fires within 5 miles of Snowflake between 1994 and 2020, burning about 26 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 8 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 | 34 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 8 |
| Natural | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 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 August 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Taylor Fire Department | not named |
| 30 August 2001 | Natural | under an acre | Fort Apache Agency | CEDARCYN/E |
| 12 August 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Taylor Fire Department | 177 |
| 21 July 2018 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Taylor Fire Department | 159 |
| 16 July 2018 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Taylor Fire Department | 152 |
| 13 July 2018 | Natural | under an acre | Taylor Fire Department | 148 |
| 10 July 2001 | Natural | under an acre | Fort Apache Agency | CEDAR CAN |
| 6 June 2018 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Taylor Fire Department | 132 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
5 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Snowflake: 2 producers, 1 unknown, 1 past producer, 1 prospect. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Gypsum-Anhydrite. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snowflake Quarry | Gypsum-Anhydrite | Past Producer | Gypsum | |
| Snowflake Quarry | Gypsum-Anhydrite | Prospect | ||
| Cottonwood Wash Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Unknown | ||
| Sand & Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer |
Storms near this place
21 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Snowflake in 21 storm reports between 1997 and 2024: 6 flash flood, 5 hail, 3 tornado, 3 heavy rain. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2024 | Hail | Snowflake | - | One inch diameter hail fell in Snowflake at around 100 PM. |
| July 2021 | Heavy Rain | Snowflake | - | A rain gauge in the town of Snowflake measured 1.97 inches of rain within an hour. |
| July 2021 | Flash Flood | Snowflake | - | The Snowflake-Taylor Police Department reported flash flooding in Snowflake with 6 inches of water over the roadways and houses threatened in the West 1st Street area. |
| September 2017 | Flash Flood | Snowflake | - | A thunderstorm with heavy rain caused a flash flood in the normally dry Dry Silver Creek Wash. A video submitted by weather spotter showed the water to be around six feet deep. |
| June 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Snowflake | - | A confirmed gustnado was on the ground for approximately 4 minutes. |
| July 2015 | Heavy Rain | Snowflake | - | Thunderstorms produced heavy rain over the Concho Highway between Snowflake and Concho with water over the road in many spots. |
| September 2011 | Hail | Snowflake | - | A trained spotter in Snowflake reported 1 1/4 inch diameter hail and wind gusts of 35 to 40 MPH from 1416 to 1426 MST. |
| July 2011 | Tornado (EF0) | Snowflake | - | Possible tornado sighted. |
| July 2008 | Flash Flood | Snowflake | - | An area of thunderstorms producing heavy rain (two inches in less than an hour) caused flash flooding over the highway from Snowflake to Concho. |
| July 2006 | Hail | Snowflake | - | One inch diameter hail was reported 7 miles northeast of Snowflake. |
| July 2006 | Flash Flood | Snowflake | - | Two to four feet of water was flowing over the Concho-Snowflake Road. |
| July 2003 | Flash Flood | Snowflake | - | A strong thunderstorm caused flooding in Snowflake. |
| September 2003 | Hail | Snowflake | - | Nickle sized (7/8 inch diameter) hail fell in western Snowflake. |
| August 2003 | Funnel Cloud | Snowflake | - | Sheriff deputy reported seeing multiple descending/ascending funnel clouds west of Snowflake. |
| September 2001 | Tornado (F0) | Snowflake | - | A tornado touched down about 5 miles north of Snowflake. The tornado was first seen at 935 AM MST then a Sheriff Deputy watched the tornado until it lifted at 1003 AM MST. The tornado remained in a rural area and no damage was reported. |
| September 2001 | Tornado (F0) | Snowflake | - | A tornado was seen 15 miles west of Snowflake. No damage was reported. |
| September 2001 | Heavy Rain | Snowflake | - | Heavy rain caused water to flow over road about one mile east of Snowflake. |
| August 1999 | Hail | Snowflake | - | A weather spotter reported 0.75 inch diameter hail in Snowflake. |
| December 1998 | Funnel Cloud | Snowflake | - | Snowflake police officers and members of the general public reported a funnel cloud. |
| August 1997 | Flood | Snowflake | - | Minor rural road flooding in the Snowflake area. |
| September 2002 | Flash Flood | Snowflake | - | no account filed |
Newspapers printed here
2,398 digitised pages1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 524 issues, 2,398 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
| Newspaper | Published |
|---|---|
| The Snowflake Herald | 1913 to 1969 |
What the paper printed
17,071 wordsFront pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 5 issues spread across its run from 1913 to 1923, 17,071 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.
These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.
| Issue | Paper | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1913-08-01 | The Snowflake Herald | 3,408 words |
| 1913-09-12 | The Snowflake Herald | 3,139 words |
| 1913-10-17 | The Snowflake Herald | 4,104 words |
| 1913-11-28 | The Snowflake Herald | 3,587 words |
| 1923-06-29 | The Snowflake Herald | 2,833 words |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor | 3.4 miles | 15 | |
| Shumway | 7.4 miles | 15 | |
| Schoens Crossing | 7.4 miles | 15 | |
| Robinson Trail Crossing | 10.6 miles | 16 | |
| White Mountain Lakes Estates | 11.7 miles | 19 | |
| White Mountain Lake | 12.1 miles | 19 | |
| Burton | 13.0 miles | 16 | |
| Silver Creek | 13.8 miles | 19 |
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 Snowflake | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1012644 | The 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 34591. 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.







