BlockBefore

Speculator, New York

26 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1907 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Lake Pleasant town. It lies in ZIP code area 12164. It lies near Sturges Hill. The Survey maps it on the Wells quadrangle. 406 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,739 feet above sea level.

Speculator within Hamilton County

Then and now

1907 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 90 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Speculator, surveyed 1997
Topographic sheet of Speculator, surveyed 1907

Compare 1907 against another survey:

On record in Speculator

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

2 figures

Speculator grew from 324 to 406 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
2010324
2020406+82 (+25%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

10 surveys from 26 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

58 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 58 fires within 5 miles of Speculator between 1992 and 2020, burning about 376 acres in total. 6 started naturally. 3 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
Recreation and ceremony19
Missing data/not specified/undetermined18
Natural6
Equipment and vehicle use6
Arson/incendiarism3
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
Debris and open burning2
Smoking2

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
7 September 2016Smokingunder an acreFire Department of New YorkN/A
4 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreNew York Forest RangersSPECULATOR FIRE
2 September 2007Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreNew York Forest RangersFAWN LAKE #1
11 September 2002Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreNew York Forest RangersALGONQUIN DR
11 September 1995Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresNew York Forest Rangersnot named
1 September 1999Arson/incendiarism1.0 acresNew York Forest Rangersnot named
6 August 2018Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreNew York Forest RangersLONG ISLAND FIRE
5 August 2020Equipment and vehicle use5.0 acresFire Department of New YorkNA

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hamilton County

Storms near this place

12 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Speculator in 12 storm reports between 1993 and 2021: 9 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 flood. 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 1993Thunderstorm WindSpeculator$50,000Severe thunderstorm winds downed trees and power lines during the late afternoon of August 31st. One of the trees fell on a van causing extensive damage.
July 1997Thunderstorm WindSpeculator$4,000no account filed
June 2021Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-Several impassable roadways, downed trees and phone lines and power outages were reported around the Moffitt Beach State Campground in the Town of Lake Pleasant. One of the trees fell onto a camper trailer.
June 2021Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-Trees were downed at Moffitt Beach near Route 8.
October 2021Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-Around 100 trees were downed, centered along Elm Lake Road, near the Village of Speculator.
October 2019Flash FloodSpeculator-Page Street was closed due to flooding.
October 2019Flash FloodSpeculator-South Shore Road in Speculator and Lake Pleasant was closed due to flooding.
November 2019FloodSpeculator-Route 30 was closed between Speculator and Indian Lake due to flooding.
May 2017Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-A tree in the village of Speculator was knocked down due to thunderstorm winds.
April 2011Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-Trees were reported down due to strong thunderstorm winds along Route 30 outside the Village of Speculator.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-A measured wind gust of 61 mph was reported by a WeatherNet6 observer on Speculator Mountain at 1700 feet.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindSpeculator-Trees and wires were reported down in Speculator due to strong thunderstorm winds.

Every storm recorded in Hamilton 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
Lake Pleasant3.3 miles26
Gilmantown4.8 miles26
Griffin7.6 miles23
Wells8.0 miles26
Rudeston8.9 miles26
Piseco9.0 miles26
Blackbridge9.0 miles26
Girards Sugarbush9.0 miles23

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 SpeculatorAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q951712The 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 965973. 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.