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

City Mills, Massachusetts

39 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Norfolk town. It lies in ZIP code area 02056. It stands on Miller Brook. The Survey maps it on the Wrentham quadrangle.

City Mills within Norfolk County

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 City Mills, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of City Mills, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

39 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Norfolk town, in the words of 1884.

1884, Norfolk Town

David S. Coolidge

He comes of early Colonial ancestry, being a lineal descendant in the eighth generation of John Coolidge, an early English immigrant, who was made a freeman at VVatertown, Middlesex County, this State, in 1636. Simon Coolidge, son of John, was the father of Obadiah and the grandfather of Joseph Coolidge, who was killed at the battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.

Read the rest of this passage

Fires nearby

122 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 122 fires within 5 miles of City Mills between 2007 and 2020, burning about 55 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined52
Recreation and ceremony36
Debris and open burning16
Smoking13
Equipment and vehicle use3
Arson/incendiarism1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
25 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMEDFIELD
22 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
17 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN
16 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN
15 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
14 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWRENTHAM
13 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN
13 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 3,268 shown

Museums hold 3,268 specimens collected within 10 miles of City Mills between 1867 and 1975: 1,923 Animalia, 739 Fungi, 478 Plantae, 89 Protozoa, 18 Chromista, 16 Unrecorded, 5 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A Herz, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Hypoprepia fucosa Hübner, 1831Hypoprepia fucosa Hübner, 18311900not recordedSherborn
A photograph of the species Grammia arge, not of this specimenGrammia arge Drury, 17731867not recordedSherborn
A photograph of the species Carex swanii, not of this specimenCarex swanii (Fernald) Mack.1870Joseph BlakeSharon
A photograph of the species Chamaecyparis thyoides, not of this specimenChamaecyparis thyoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.1870Joseph BlakeSharon
Chantransia hermannii (Roth) Desvaux1870F. W. Dewart
A photograph of the species Trichophorum planifolium, not of this specimenTrichophorum planifolium (Spreng.) Palla1870Joseph BlakeSharon
A photograph of the species Hamamelis virginiana, not of this specimenHamamelis virginiana L.1871T. Morong
A photograph of the species Ranunculus trichophyllus, not of this specimenRanunculus trichophyllus Chaix1871Joseph BlakeSharon
A photograph of the species Operophtera bruceata, not of this specimenOperophtera bruceata (Hulst, 1886)1873not recordedSherborn
A photograph of the species Gymnocarpium dryopteris, not of this specimenGymnocarpium dryopteris (L.) Newman1874not recorded
A photograph of the species Nitella tenuissima, not of this specimenNitella tenuissima (Desv.) Kütz.1874Piper, S. M.
Thelypteris phegopteris (L.) Sloss.1874not recorded

All 3,268 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 19 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 19 workings within 5 miles of City Mills: 9 past producers, 9 producers, 1 unknown. 9 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Granite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Bates Bros QuarryGraniteProducer
Walpole QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Wrentham QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenUnknown
Wrentham QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Chestnut Street PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Dedham Sand and Gravel CoSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Franklin PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
J Colella and Son IncSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Medway PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Millis Pit & PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Norfolk 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
Acorn Terrace1.3 miles39
Norfolk1.7 miles39
Rockville2.2 miles43
Highland Lake2.7 miles43
Franklin2.8 miles44
Wrentham3.2 miles39
Medway3.2 miles41
Campbells Station3.4 miles43

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 Q122598874The 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 618549. 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.