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

Readville, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Boston City. It lies in ZIP code area 02136. It stands on Bald Knob. The Survey maps it on the Norwood quadrangle.

Readville within Suffolk County

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Readville, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Readville, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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

43 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 43 fires within 5 miles of Readville between 2003 and 2020, burning about 351 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	21
Recreation and ceremony	11
Smoking	8
Equipment and vehicle use	3

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
3 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
23 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 September 2017	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
17 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
1 September 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
6 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MILTON
28 August 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MILTON
28 August 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Suffolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 10,173 shown

Museums hold 10,173 specimens collected within 10 miles of Readville between 1810 and 1975: 4,216 Plantae, 2,774 Animalia, 2,753 Fungi, 175 Protozoa, 154 Chromista, 60 Bacteria, 41 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, A C Gibson 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
Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald	1900	A. P. Chute
Thalictrum L.	1810	Boott, J.W.	Near Boston.
Anemone L.	1815	Boott, J.	Andover Turnpike, 7 miles from Boston.
Betula L.	1815	Boott, J.W.	Near Fresh Pond, Cambridge, 4 miles from Boston.
Corylus L.	1815	not recorded	Cambridge Port, 2 miles from Boston.
Ericaceae	1815	Boott	Boston, U.S.A.
Hepatica Mill.	1815	Boott, F.M.B.	Sweet Auburn.
Acanthis flammea flammea (Linnaeus, 1758)	1900	ZAPPEY, W R	ROSLINDALE
Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Acer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Agaricus flavescens (Gillet) Sacc.	1900	G. E. Morris
Alnus incana subsp. rugosa (Du Roi) R.T.Clausen	1900	J. Murdoch, Jr.	Roxbury

All 10,173 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

1 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Readville: 1 unknown. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
	West Roxbury Crushed Stone Operatio	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Unknown

Every working 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Stonybrook Village	0.9 miles	46
Hyde Park	1.2 miles	46
Fairmount	1.4 miles	46
Germantown	1.8 miles	46
Clarendon Hills	2.5 miles	46
West Roxbury	2.8 miles	46
Mount Hope	3.0 miles	46
Highland	3.3 miles	46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612523. 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.