Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Becket Center, Massachusetts

37 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Becket town. It lies in ZIP code area 01223. It stands on Hamilton Brook. The Survey maps it on the Becket quadrangle.

Becket Center within Berkshire County

Then and now

1886 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 111 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Becket Center, surveyed 1997

Topographic sheet of Becket Center, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

37 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 nearby

10 since 2016

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Becket Center between 2016 and 2019, burning about 29 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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
Debris and open burning	5
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Smoking	1
Recreation and ceremony	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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
29 August 2017	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
29 July 2017	Recreation and ceremony	2.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 June 2018	Power generation/transmission/distribution	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 April 2019	Smoking	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 April 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
20 April 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
10 April 2017	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
31 March 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,743 shown

Museums hold 1,743 specimens collected within 10 miles of Becket Center between 1834 and 1975: 1,209 Animalia, 402 Plantae, 131 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. E. Treat, A. K. Harrison, A. M. Vail and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Parnassia caroliniana Michx.	1834	not recorded
Homalia trichomanoides (Hedw.) Schimp.	1867	E. C. Howe
Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw.	1872	Miller, E.S.	East Hampton
Eleusine indica (L.) Gaertn.	1874	Frederick N. Pease
Warnstorfia fluitans (Hedw.) Loeske	1876	Piper
Leucobryum glaucum (Hedw.) Ångstr.	1877	H. J. Biddlecome	Chester
Botrychium angustisegmentum (Pease & A.H.Moore) Fernald	1879	not recorded
Botrychium dissectum Spreng.	1879	not recorded
Botrychium virginianum subsp. typicum R.T.Clausen	1884	Spencer, M.F.	Tyringham. In silvaticis.
Acer saccharum Marshall	1897	Vail, A.M.	Tyringham
Acer spicatum Lam.	1897	Vail, A.M.	Vicinity of Tyringham
Acorus calamus L.	1897	Vail, A.M.	vicnity of Tyringham

All 1,743 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 22 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 22 workings within 5 miles of Becket Center: 8 past producers, 8 occurrences, 6 producers. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Emery, Silica, Iron, Granite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Chester Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Chrome-Magnetite Mine	Iron, Chromium	Past Producer
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron, Emery	Occurrence	1875
Berkshire Quarry	Granite	Producer
Williams Stone Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Magnetite
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron, Emery	Past Producer
Silica Quarry	Silica	Producer
Silica Quarry	Silica	Producer
Silica Quarry	Silica	Producer

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Storms nearby

2 since 2005

The National Weather Service names Becket Center in 2 storm reports between 2005 and 2021: 2 thunderstorm wind. 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 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Becket Center	-	Several trees were downed near Becket.
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Becket Center	-	Trees were blown down.

Every storm recorded in Berkshire 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Camp Chimney Corners	0.5 miles	37
Camp Becket	1.0 miles	37
Camp Greylock	1.2 miles	37
Bonny Rigg Corners	1.5 miles	37
Indian Lake Estates	1.9 miles	37
Becket	3.5 miles	37
West Becket	4.0 miles	38
North Otis	4.3 miles	37

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.

Wikidata item Q122539286

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 608010. 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.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

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.