North Brookfield, Massachusetts

The same ground, surveyed 98 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

1887 1985

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 2 records

• Camp Atwaterlisted 1982
• North Brookfield Town Houselisted 2001

Businesses named in the fire insurance atlases 12 of 15 shown

• Central HotelHotel, in the atlas of 1892 to 1906
• North Brookfield Journal PrintingPrinting, in the atlas of 1892 to 1901
• Public SchoolSchool, in the atlas of 1892 to 1901
• Catholie ChurchChurch, in the atlas of 1896 to 1901
• Grove SchoolSchool, in the atlas of 1892 to 1901
• Lafayette HotelHotel, in the atlas of 1896 to 1901
• Union Congreg. ChurchChurch, in the atlas of 1892 to 1896
• Christ Memorial Church (Epise'l)Church, in the atlas of 1906
• Congregational ChurchChurch, in the atlas of 1892
• Goddard, A. J., Grist MillMill, in the atlas of 1901
• High SchoolSchool, in the atlas of 1906
• Meth. Epise. ChurchChurch, in the atlas of 1901

Every atlas business in Worcester County

North Brookfield fell from 2,265 to 2,256 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, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. 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.

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.

• 1887 USGS Barre quadrangle1:62500
• 1889 USGS Barre quadrangle1:62500
• 1894 USGS Barre quadrangle1:62500, 7 printings
• 1908 USGS Ware quadrangle1:125000, 2 printings
• 1942 USGS Ware quadrangle1:125000
• 1946 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:31680, 2 printings
• 1948 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
• 1952 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
• 1952 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:31680, 2 printings
• 1956 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
• 1957 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
• 1959 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
• 1962 USGS Albany quadrangle1:250000
• 1967 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:25000
• 1967 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
• 1975 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:25000
• 1982 USGS North Brookfield quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
• 1985 USGS Holyoke quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 74 fires within 5 miles of North Brookfield between 2015 and 2020, burning about 52 acres in total. None started naturally. 8 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.

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

• East Brookfield
• South Spencer
• Union Chapel (historical)
• Camp Bement
• Hillsville
• Lower Wire Village

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 386 specimens collected within 10 miles of North Brookfield between 1850 and 1975: 203 Plantae, 100 Animalia, 81 Fungi, 2 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. F. Hill, H. St. John, G.S. Torrey, A. Lavallee 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
	Carex tenera var. tenera	1899	R. M. Harper
	Cladonia cornucopioides F.Wilson	1850	J. L. Russell	Leicester
	Carex vestita Willd.	1858	J. Blake	Ware
	Celastrus scandens L.	1858	s.coll.
	Adiantum pedatum L.	1866	Collector(s): Elizabeth Emerson Atwater; Preparator(s): Alex Lorenz	Leicester
	Athyrium filix-femina (L.) Roth	1866	Collector(s): Elizabeth Emerson Atwater; Preparator(s): Alex Lorenz	Leicester
	Dennstaedtia punctilobula (Michx.) T.Moore	1866	Collector(s): Elizabeth Emerson Atwater; Preparator(s): Alex Lorenz	Leicester
	Cladonia squamosa Hoffm.	1870	M.E.T.	Hardwick
	Nitella megacarpa (T.F.A.) R.D.W.	1894	G. E. Stern	Lake Lashaway
	Calyptospora goeppertiana J.G.Kühn	1895	not recorded	US, Massachusetts, Barre
	Vaccinium corymbosum L.	1895	not recorded	US, Massachusetts, Barre
	Calosoma calidum (Fabricius, 1775)	1896	Knab, Frederick (1865-1918)	Massachusetts

All 386 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of North Brookfield: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. 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.

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names North Brookfield in 5 storm reports between 2014 and 2023: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 tornado. 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.

Every storm recorded in Worcester County

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

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.

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 609951. 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.