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

Highlands, Massachusetts

48 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Lowell City. It lies in ZIP code area 01851. It stands on Black Brook. The Survey maps it on the Lowell quadrangle.

Highlands 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 Highlands, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Highlands, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

48 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 county-history sources

160,056 words on this township

The county-history sources names this settlement in its chapter on Lowell City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Lowell City - it names this place 1 more 1 time.

Fires near this place

125 since 2001

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 125 fires within 5 miles of Highlands between 2001 and 2020, burning about 71 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 31 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	32
Arson/incendiarism	31
Debris and open burning	29
Recreation and ceremony	18
Natural	4
Smoking	4
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Other causes	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 2002	Smoking	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2002	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
9 August 2002	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	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
18 August 2002	Debris and open burning	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

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 529 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 529 specimens collected within 10 miles of Highlands between 1898 and 1975: 365 Plantae, 99 Animalia, 32 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 3 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Mathieson, 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
Antennaria howellii subsp. neodioica (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1899	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria neglecta Greene	1899	not recorded
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Arthrosporium compositum Ellis	1899	Rorer	East Billerica
Asarum canadense L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Bidens cernua L.	1899	E. F. Williams
Dichanthelium oligosanthes subsp. scribnerianum (Nash) Freckmann & Lelong	1899	E. F. Williams
Elatine americana (Pursh) Arn.	1899	not recorded
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Corylus americana Walter	1900	E. F. Williams

All 529 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 29 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 29 workings within 5 miles of Highlands: 15 past producers, 10 producers, 4 plants. 14 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
Dracut Deposit	Cobalt, Nickel	Past Producer	1876, 1939
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Brox Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Chelmsford Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Dracut Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Essex Bituminous Concrete Products	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
George Brox Inc	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
West Chelmsford Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Fletcher Westford 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
Middlesex Village	0.6 miles	48
Princeton Village	1.0 miles	48
Westlands	1.1 miles	41
Lowell	1.1 miles	48
Ayres City	1.4 miles	48
Bleachery	1.8 miles	48
Pawtucketville	2.0 miles	48
Centralville	2.4 miles	48

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611814. 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.