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.
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
William Whitley House State Shrinelisted 1973- Confederate Monument at Crab Orchardlisted 1997
Population over time
3 figuresCrab 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 842 | |
| 2010 | 841 | -1 (-0%) |
| 2020 | 744 | -97 (-12%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 7 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.
- 1952 USGS Crab Orchard quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Winchester quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1960 USGS Winchester quadrangle1:250000
- 1982 USGS Somerset quadrangle1:100000
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.
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Fires near this place
60 since 1998Regional 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/undetermined | 21 |
| Debris and open burning | 19 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 10 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 10 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 September 1998 | Arson/incendiarism | 30 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 5 September 2005 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 28 August 1998 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 1 May 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | 25 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 5 April 2013 | Recreation and ceremony | 2.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | DRIPPING SPRINGS |
| 5 April 2010 | Debris and open burning | 32 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 3 April 2010 | Debris and open burning | 1.0 acres | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
| 29 April 2001 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Kentucky Division of Forestry | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
8 since 1999Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 1999 | Tornado (F0) | Crab Orchard | $70,000 | A tornado touched down briefly, rendering a trailer unsalvageable. The roof of the trailer was blown 200 feet. |
| August 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Crab Orchard | $50,000 | Numerous trees and power lines down |
| February 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Crab Orchard | $10,000 | A barn was demolished in the Maywood area. |
| May 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Crab Orchard | - | A tree was blown down on Old Fall Lick Road. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Crab Orchard | - | Trees were downed. |
| May 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Crab Orchard | - | Six power poles were blown down. |
| August 1999 | Hail | Crab Orchard | - | Hail damaged tobacco crops |
| July 2000 | Hail | Crab Orchard | - | no account filed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colliers Store (historical) | 2.1 miles | 7 | |
| Fall Lick (historical) | 2.1 miles | 12 | |
| Cedar Creek (historical) | 2.3 miles | 7 | |
| Gentontown (historical) | 2.6 miles | 12 | |
| Sugar Grove | 3.2 miles | 7 | |
| Turkeytown | 3.2 miles | 12 | |
| Chapel Gap (historical) | 3.5 miles | 7 | |
| Peoples Corner (historical) | 3.9 miles | 7 |
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 Orchard | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2831276 | 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 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.



