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

Gardner, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Gardner City. It lies in ZIP code area 01440. It stands on Washington Hill. The Survey maps it on the Gardner quadrangle. 21,287 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,063 feet above sea level.

Gardner within Worcester County

Population over time

2 figures

Gardner grew from 20,228 to 21,287 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. 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	20,228
2020	21,287	+1,059 (+5%)

Then and now

1887 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 101 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Gardner, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Gardner, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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

74 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 74 fires within 5 miles of Gardner between 2015 and 2020, burning about 37 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
Debris and open burning	44
Smoking	11
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Recreation and ceremony	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
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
27 September 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
28 August 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 July 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
29 July 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 July 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 533 shown

Museums hold 533 specimens collected within 10 miles of Gardner between 1870 and 1973: 277 Plantae, 162 Animalia, 89 Fungi, 3 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. B. Seymour, A. F. Newton 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
Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum (Willd.) R.T.Clausen	1900	Davenport	Pine Hill; Medford
Carex maritima Gunnerus	1870	J. W. Congdon	Wellville
Veronica L.	1871	not recorded
Hylesinus aculeatus Say & T., 1824	1872	unknown	Fitchburg
Carex foenea Willd.	1878	W. Boott	Wachusett Mountain
Sibbaldiopsis tridentata (Aiton) Rydb.	1879	Bailey, W.W.	summit of Mt. Wachusett
Drosera rotundifolia L.	1882	not recorded
Linnaea borealis subsp. longiflora (Torrey) Hultén	1882	not recorded
Moneses uniflora (L.) A.Gray	1882	M. A. M.	Winchendon
Peltandra virginica (L.) Schott	1892	A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.	1892	not recorded
Cylindrosporium chrysanthemi Ellis & Dearn.	1895	Seymour A. B.	Fitchburg

All 533 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

8 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Gardner: 6 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
City of Gardner	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Dines Roger Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Highway Pit & Gardner Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Hubbardston Hwy Dept Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Otter River Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Templeton Hwy Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Templeton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Templeton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

26 since 1995

The National Weather Service names Gardner in 26 storm reports between 1995 and 2020: 14 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 lightning, 2 flood. The reports record 2 injuries. 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 2003	Lightning	Gardner	2 hurt	no account filed
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Gardner	$30,000	Eight trees and utility poles were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 1998	Lightning	Gardner	$15,000	no account filed
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Gardner	$10,000	Trees, tree limbs, and wires on Camp Collier Road were downed by thunderstorm winds.
May 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Gardner	$5,000	A tree and wires on Minott Road in Gardner were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Gardner	$5,000	A tree and several large tree limbs on Edgell STreet in Gardner were downed by thunderstorm winds. Trees in Ashuburnham also were downed with one blocking a road.
June 2020	Flood	Gardner	$4,000	In Gardner, there were many areas of flooding. There was one foot of water on a section of Route 2A at 618 PM EST. A car was stuck in flooding on Timpany Blvd. at 643 PM EST. Chestnut Street at Union Square was flooded and impassable at 648 PM EST. A basement was flooded on Dean Street at 658 PM EST.
September 2018	Flood	Gardner	$3,000	At 8:46 PM EST, a car was trapped in flood waters on Risley Street and John Street in Gardner.
August 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Gardner	$3,000	no account filed
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	East Gardner	$1,000	At 11:58 AM EST, a thunderstorm over Westminster brought a tree down on Shady Avenue, blocking the road.
September 2018	Flash Flood	Gardner	-	At 8:58 AM EST, Walnut Street in Gardner was flooded.
May 2015	Hail	Gardner	-	Penny size hail covered the ground.
August 2015	Hail	Gardner	-	Quarter to golf ball size hail fell in Gardner.
June 2007	Hail	Gardner	-	Penny size hail.
May 2015	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
May 2013	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
June 2011	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
May 2007	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
August 2004	Funnel Cloud	Gardner	-	no account filed
May 2002	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
June 2002	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
August 2000	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
August 1999	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
May 1998	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed
May 1995	Hail	Gardner	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Worcester 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
Olde English Village	1.2 miles	40
South Gardner	1.5 miles	40
East Templeton	2.2 miles	33
East Gardner	2.4 miles	40
Partidgeville	3.2 miles	33
Otter River	3.2 miles	33
Camp Collier	3.5 miles	40
Pitcherville	3.8 miles	33

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 Gardner	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1829193	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 610059. 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.