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Crab Orchard, Kentucky

7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1952 and the latest in 1982. It stands in the Crab Orchard census division. It lies in ZIP code area 40419. It stands on Flax Creek. The Survey maps it on the Crab Orchard quadrangle. 744 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 951 feet above sea level.

Crab Orchard within Lincoln County

On record in Crab Orchard

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 2 records

Population over time

3 figures

Crab Orchard fell from 842 to 744 between 2000 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
2000842
2010841-1 (-0%)
2020744-97 (-12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

4 surveys from 7 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.

Photographs

1 photograph,

Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.

Colonel William Whitley House, Stanford-Crab Orchard Pike, Stanford, Lincoln County, KY
Colonel William Whitley House, Stanford-Crab Orchard Pike, Stanford, Lincoln County, KY
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress

Fires near this place

60 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 60 fires within 5 miles of Crab Orchard between 1998 and 2018, burning about 889 acres in total. None started naturally. 10 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/undetermined21
Debris and open burning19
Recreation and ceremony10
Arson/incendiarism10

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
8 September 1998Arson/incendiarism30 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
5 September 2005Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
28 August 1998Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
1 May 2001Arson/incendiarism25 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
5 April 2013Recreation and ceremony2.0 acresKentucky Division of ForestryDRIPPING SPRINGS
5 April 2010Debris and open burning32 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
3 April 2010Debris and open burning1.0 acresKentucky Division of Forestrynot named
29 April 2001Arson/incendiarismunder an acreKentucky Division of Forestrynot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lincoln County

Storms near this place

8 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Crab Orchard in 8 storm reports between 1999 and 2025: 5 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 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
August 1999Tornado (F0)Crab Orchard$70,000A tornado touched down briefly, rendering a trailer unsalvageable. The roof of the trailer was blown 200 feet.
August 1999Thunderstorm WindCrab Orchard$50,000Numerous trees and power lines down
February 2009Thunderstorm WindCrab Orchard$10,000A barn was demolished in the Maywood area.
May 2025Thunderstorm WindCrab Orchard-A tree was blown down on Old Fall Lick Road.
July 2006Thunderstorm WindCrab Orchard-Trees were downed.
May 2002Thunderstorm WindCrab Orchard-Six power poles were blown down.
August 1999HailCrab Orchard-Hail damaged tobacco crops
July 2000HailCrab Orchard-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lincoln 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
Colliers Store (historical)2.1 miles7
Fall Lick (historical)2.1 miles12
Cedar Creek (historical)2.3 miles7
Gentontown (historical)2.6 miles12
Sugar Grove3.2 miles7
Turkeytown3.2 miles12
Chapel Gap (historical)3.5 miles7
Peoples Corner (historical)3.9 miles7

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 Crab OrchardAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2831276The 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 490242. 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.

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.