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.
Then and now
1907 to 1997The 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.


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
- Grace Methodist Church Complexlisted 2015
- Lake Pleasant Town Halllisted 2009
Population over time
2 figuresSpeculator 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 324 | |
| 2020 | 406 | +82 (+25%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
10 surveys from 26 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.
- 1907 USGS Lake Pleasant quadrangle1:62500, 8 printings
- 1950 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
- 1954 USGS Lake Pleasant quadrangle1:62500, 6 printings
- 1957 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
- 1962 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1964 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
- 1967 USGS Utica quadrangle1:250000
- 1985 USGS Gloversville quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1990 USGS Wells quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
- 1997 USGS Wells quadrangle1:25000
Fires near this place
58 since 1992Regional 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 ceremony | 19 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 18 |
| Natural | 6 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 6 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 3 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 2 |
| Debris and open burning | 2 |
| Smoking | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 September 2016 | Smoking | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | N/A |
| 4 September 2020 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | New York Forest Rangers | SPECULATOR FIRE |
| 2 September 2007 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | New York Forest Rangers | FAWN LAKE #1 |
| 11 September 2002 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | New York Forest Rangers | ALGONQUIN DR |
| 11 September 1995 | Recreation and ceremony | 1.0 acres | New York Forest Rangers | not named |
| 1 September 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 1.0 acres | New York Forest Rangers | not named |
| 6 August 2018 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | New York Forest Rangers | LONG ISLAND FIRE |
| 5 August 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | 5.0 acres | Fire Department of New York | NA |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
12 since 1993Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 1993 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | $50,000 | Severe 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 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | $4,000 | no account filed |
| June 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | 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 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | Trees were downed at Moffitt Beach near Route 8. |
| October 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | Around 100 trees were downed, centered along Elm Lake Road, near the Village of Speculator. |
| October 2019 | Flash Flood | Speculator | - | Page Street was closed due to flooding. |
| October 2019 | Flash Flood | Speculator | - | South Shore Road in Speculator and Lake Pleasant was closed due to flooding. |
| November 2019 | Flood | Speculator | - | Route 30 was closed between Speculator and Indian Lake due to flooding. |
| May 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | A tree in the village of Speculator was knocked down due to thunderstorm winds. |
| April 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | Trees were reported down due to strong thunderstorm winds along Route 30 outside the Village of Speculator. |
| June 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | A measured wind gust of 61 mph was reported by a WeatherNet6 observer on Speculator Mountain at 1700 feet. |
| June 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Speculator | - | Trees and wires were reported down in Speculator due to strong thunderstorm winds. |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Pleasant | 3.3 miles | 26 | |
| Gilmantown | 4.8 miles | 26 | |
| Griffin | 7.6 miles | 23 | |
| Wells | 8.0 miles | 26 | |
| Rudeston | 8.9 miles | 26 | |
| Piseco | 9.0 miles | 26 | |
| Blackbridge | 9.0 miles | 26 | |
| Girards Sugarbush | 9.0 miles | 23 |
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 Speculator | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q951712 | 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 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.









