Gates Crossing, Massachusetts
43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Leominster City. It lies in ZIP code area 01453. It lies near Pine Hill. The Survey maps it on the Clinton quadrangle.
Then and now
1887 to 1997The same ground, surveyed 110 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


Compare 1887 against another survey:
Topographic sheets covering this place
20 surveys from 43 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1887 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500
- 1889 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500
- 1896 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500
- 1898 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500, 8 printings
- 1908 USGS Quinsigamond quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1943 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:31680, 3 printings
- 1943 USGS Quinsigamond quadrangle1:125000
- 1948 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1950 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1950 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:31680, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 6 printings
- 1958 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1961 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1965 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:25000
- 1965 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:24000
- 1975 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:25000
- 1985 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000
- 1988 USGS Hudson quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
- 1989 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1997 USGS Hudson quadrangle1:25000
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Leominster city. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.
Chapter Clviil Military
Leominster haa an honorable war record. She would, indeed, be unworthy both of her ancestors and the times of her birth, if in all the struggles for liberty, she had not made full proof of her patriotism. It is true that the first settlers of the town had no personal experience of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife; but the story of what their fathers had suffered was a close remembrance ; and these hardy pioneers had barely time to build their rude homes, " establish God's house in the wilderness," connect the hill-tops by roads and erect here and there a mill to grind their corn and saw their logs, when the alarm of war sounded at the North, and the sword did not, for the next ihirty-and-five years, rest easy in its scabbard.
In the county-history sources
21,669 words on this townshipHistory of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for smaller places. Its township is covered in full.
The chapter on Leominster City covers the township.
Read the chapter on Leominster City - 21,669 words.
Fires near this place
124 since 2002Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 124 fires within 5 miles of Gates Crossing between 2002 and 2020, burning about 2,747 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 | 56 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 44 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 11 |
| Smoking | 11 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 September 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 5 September 2016 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 24 September 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 3.4 acres | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | MONOOSNOC HILL |
| 22 September 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 18 September 2016 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 26 August 2017 | Smoking | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 24 August 2016 | Smoking | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 22 August 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:
Specimens collected near this place
12 of 1,852 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,852 specimens collected within 10 miles of Gates Crossing between 1859 and 1974: 1,096 Animalia, 557 Plantae, 179 Fungi, 8 Unrecorded, 8 Chromista, 4 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Gibson, A. Ferrett 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 | Species | Year | Collected by | Where, as recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | Porella platyphylla (L.) Pfeiff. | 1895 | James F. Collins | South spur, Mount Wachusett |
![]() | Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum (Willd.) R.T.Clausen | 1900 | Davenport | Pine Hill; Medford |
![]() | Condylura cristata cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) | 1859 | E S Wheeler | BERLIN |
![]() | Dryobates pubescens medianus (Swainson, 1832) | 1861 | not recorded | Bolton |
| Clemmys insculpta Fitzinger, 1835 | 1864 | Agassiz | ||
![]() | Hylesinus aculeatus Say & T., 1824 | 1872 | unknown | Fitchburg |
![]() | Carex foenea Willd. | 1878 | W. Boott | Wachusett Mountain |
![]() | Bromus sterilis L. | 1879 | C. E. Faxon | |
![]() | Merulius lacrymans (Wulfen) Schumach. | 1879 | Howes, A. | Massachusetts |
![]() | Sibbaldiopsis tridentata (Aiton) Rydb. | 1879 | Bailey, W.W. | summit of Mt. Wachusett |
![]() | Hypericum gentianoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb. | 1881 | Fredrick L Sargent | Lunenburg |
| Arthuriomyces peckianus (Howe) Cummins & Y.Hirats. | 1892 | W. B. Hosmer |
All 1,852 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Mines and quarries near this place
10 of 13 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 13 workings within 5 miles of Gates Crossing: 5 producers, 4 past producers, 2 prospects, 1 occurrence. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Tungsten, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leominster | Lithium, Tin | Occurrence | 1824 | |
| Leominster Pit | Geothermal | Past Producer | ||
| Luciani Prospect | Tungsten | Prospect | ||
| Sterling Prospect | Iron, Zinc | Prospect | ||
| Keating Quarry & Mill | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Unknown | ||
| Keating Quarry and Mill | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Kanis Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Lancaster Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Luenburg Plant | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| P J Keating | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | Sedimentary |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pratt Junction | 1.9 miles | 43 | |
| Leominster | 2.3 miles | 42 | |
| Ponakin Mill | 2.8 miles | 43 | |
| North Leominster | 3.2 miles | 44 | |
| Lunenburg Station | 3.3 miles | 44 | |
| West Leominster | 3.6 miles | 42 | |
| North Village | 3.8 miles | 43 | |
| Sterling | 4.2 miles | 46 |
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 Q122553299 | 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 617002. 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.





























