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

Dorchester Center, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Boston City. It lies in ZIP code area 02124. It stands on Mount Bowdoin. The Survey maps it on the Boston South quadrangle.

Dorchester Center within Suffolk County

Then and now

1893 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 96 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Dorchester Center, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Dorchester Center, surveyed 1893

Topographic sheets covering this place

46 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 Boston city, in the words of 1894.

1894, Boston City

City Charter

IN giving some notices of manners and social life during this period, I shall speak first of usages which were characteristic of the close of the last century: most of them continued without essential modification until our city charter swept away the old landmarks, and Boston felt the im¬ pulses which mark a new epoch in her history.

Read the rest of this passage

Fires nearby

124 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 124 fires within 5 miles of Dorchester Center between 2015 and 2020, burning about 82 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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 ceremony78
Smoking26
Missing data/not specified/undetermined15
Equipment and vehicle use2
Arson/incendiarism2
Debris and open burning1

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
5 September 2016Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlQUINCY
23 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
2 September 2018Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBROOKLINE
2 September 2017Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlQUINCY
14 September 2016Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlQUINCY
11 September 2016Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlQUINCY
10 September 2016Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlQUINCY

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Suffolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 15,075 shown

Museums hold 15,075 specimens collected within 10 miles of Dorchester Center between 1810 and 1975: 6,459 Plantae, 4,184 Fungi, 3,445 Animalia, 570 Chromista, 197 Protozoa, 140 Bacteria, 80 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, 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 Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) FernaldLysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald1900A. P. Chute
A photograph of the species Thalictrum L., not of this specimenThalictrum L.1810Boott, J.W.Near Boston.
A photograph of the species Anemone L., not of this specimenAnemone L.1815Boott, J.Andover Turnpike, 7 miles from Boston.
A photograph of the species Betula L., not of this specimenBetula L.1815Boott, J.W.Near Fresh Pond, Cambridge, 4 miles from Boston.
A photograph of the species Chenopodium album, not of this specimenChenopodium album L.1815not recordedGathered at Bunker (properly Breed's) Hill.
A photograph of the species Corylus L., not of this specimenCorylus L.1815not recordedCambridge Port, 2 miles from Boston.
Ericaceae1815BoottBoston, U.S.A.
Acanthis flammea flammea (Linnaeus, 1758)1900ZAPPEY, W RROSLINDALE
Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.1900A. K. HarrisonHarvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Acer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.1900A. K. HarrisonHarvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Agaricus flavescens (Gillet) Sacc.1900G. E. Morris
Agarum turneri Postels & Ruprecht1900J. MurdochRevere

All 15,075 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

6 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Dorchester Center: 3 plants, 1 unknown, 1 past producer, 1 producer. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Granite, Iron, Lead. 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
General Metals & Smelting--BostonLeadPlant
Old Colony Crushed StoneGranitePast ProducerGranite
Us Steel Supply Div--BostonIronPlant
Whittemore Prdts Inc--BostonPerlitePlant
Old Colony QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
West Roxbury Crushed Stone OperatioStone, Crushed/BrokenUnknown

Every working recorded in Suffolk County

Storms nearby

5 since 2011

The National Weather Service names Dorchester Center in 5 storm reports between 2011 and 2018: 3 flood, 1 lightning, 1 flash 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
May 2011LightningDorchester Center$250,000Lightning struck the third floor porch of a three story home in Dorchester, igniting it. The fire quickly spread, displacing 10 residents.
August 2017Flash FloodDorchester Center$20,000At 450 PM EST, Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester was flooded and impassable near the Boston Globe Building. Four cars were trapped in the flood waters.At 454 PM EST, Fields Corner mass transit station was flooded and impassable with buses trapped in flood waters. At 455 PM EST Morrissey Boulevard was shut down due to flooding at Neponset Circle. At 455 PM EST, a car was trapped in three feet of water on Columbia Road at Hamilton Street. At 532 PM EST Talbot Street and Park Street and Clayton Street were flooded and impassable.
September 2018FloodDorchester Center$3,000At 10:52 PM EST, a car was trapped in flood waters on Morrissey Boulevard in the Neponset section of Dorchester, near Conley Street.
November 2018FloodDorchester Center-In Dorchester, Morrissey Boulevard at Tolman Street was closed due to flooding.
August 2017FloodDorchester Center-At 510 PM EST, Southern Avenue in Boston was flooded and impassable. At 537 PM EST, multiple cars were trapped in flood waters on Quincy Street and Harvard Street in Boston. The streets were flooded and impassable. A bus was trapped on Gallivan Boulevard, which was flooded and impassable.

Every storm recorded in Suffolk 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
Dorchester0.4 miles46
Ashmont0.6 miles46
Mount Bowdoin0.9 miles46
Fields Corner0.9 miles46
Mount Ida1.0 miles46
Cedar Grove1.1 miles46
Lower Mills1.2 miles46
Meeting House Hill1.2 miles46

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 Q122567716The 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 612907. 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.