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

Brookside Station, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Westford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01886. It stands on Gilson Brook. The Survey maps it on the Westford quadrangle.

Brookside Station within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Brookside Station, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Brookside Station, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

43 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.

In the 1908 county history

17,609 words on this township

The county history of 1908 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for the smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Westford Town covers the township.

Read the chapter on Westford Town - 17,609 words.

Fires nearby

49 since 2002

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 49 fires within 5 miles of Brookside Station between 2002 and 2020, burning about 29 acres in total. 1 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	21
Debris and open burning	15
Recreation and ceremony	6
Arson/incendiarism	3
Natural	1
Smoking	1
Other causes	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	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
6 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
4 August 2002	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
17 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 June 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 June 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
9 May 2015	Other causes	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 617 shown

Museums hold 617 specimens collected within 10 miles of Brookside Station between 1898 and 1975: 360 Plantae, 134 Animalia, 64 Protozoa, 52 Fungi, 4 Unrecorded, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer 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
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Fuirena pumila (Torr.) Spreng.	1899	E. F. Williams
Galium tinctorium (L.) Scop.	1899	not recorded
Menispora libertiana Sacc. & Roum. ex Sacc.	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Muhlenbergia uniflora (Muhl.) Fernald	1899	E. F. Williams
Oryzopsis asperifolia Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Polygala sanguinea L.	1900	E. F. Williams

All 617 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 29 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 29 workings within 5 miles of Brookside Station: 17 past producers, 9 producers, 3 plants. 12 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Graphite. 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
Fiber Matls Plant--Graniteville, Ma	Graphite	Plant
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
West Chelmsford Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Fletcher Westford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Forest Road Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Guilmette Bros Granite	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
H E Fletcher Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Le Masurier Granite Quarry Inc	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Le Masurier Quarry and Mill	Granite	Producer
North Chelmsford Quarry	Granite	Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex 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
Nabnasset	0.6 miles	43
West Chelmsford	0.8 miles	43
Whidden Corner	1.3 miles	50
Westford Station	1.5 miles	43
Camp Cielo Celeste	1.9 miles	43
Camp Nashoba	2.0 miles	43
Camp Wakitatina	2.1 miles	43
Ward Corner	2.2 miles	43

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 Q122593752

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 611199. 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.