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

Shirley Center, Massachusetts

44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Shirley town. It lies in ZIP code area 01464. It stands on Chaplin Hill. The Survey maps it on the Shirley quadrangle.

Shirley Center within Middlesex County

Then and now

1893 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 95 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Shirley Center, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Shirley Center, surveyed 1893

Topographic sheets covering this place

44 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 1908 county history

16,055 words on this township

The county history of 1908 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for the smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Shirley Town covers the township.

Read the chapter on Shirley Town - 16,055 words.

Fires nearby

69 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 69 fires within 5 miles of Shirley Center between 2015 and 2020, burning about 285 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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	34
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	22
Smoking	6
Recreation and ceremony	5
Arson/incendiarism	1
Equipment and vehicle use	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
29 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
1 September 2017	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
27 August 2017	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 July 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 July 2016	Recreation and ceremony	1.3 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	ANDOVER

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 371 shown

Museums hold 371 specimens collected within 10 miles of Shirley Center between 1900 and 1974: 233 Animalia, 74 Plantae, 35 Protozoa, 25 Fungi, 4 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Gibson, A. K. Moore, B. G. Schubert, C.E. Wood Jr. 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
Pholiota carbonaria (Fr.) Singer	1900	H. Webster	Groton.
unnamed	1926	F.A. Gilbert
Adoxophyes furcatana (Walker, 1863)	1926	not recorded	Lancaster
Anavitrinella pampinaria (Guenée, 1857)	1926	not recorded	Lunenburg
Arcyria cinerea (Bull.) Pers., 1801	1926	Collector unspecified
Alopecurus aequalis Sobol.	1930	M. L. Fernald; C. A. Weatherby
Cistothorus stellaris (J.F.Naumann, 1823)	1930	Collector(s): James Lee Peters	Harvard
Colaptes auratus luteus Bangs, 1898	1930	Collector(s): James Lee Peters	Harvard
Epitheca cynosura (Say, 1840)	1930	Davis, E. M.	MA, Middlesex Co., Shirley
Hemaris thysbe Fabricius, 1775	1930	not recorded	Lunenburg
Lanius ludovicianus migrans W.Palmer, 1898	1930	Collector(s): James Lee Peters	Harvard
Molothrus ater ater (Boddaert, 1783)	1930	Collector(s): James Lee Peters	Harvard

All 371 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

6 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Shirley Center: 4 past producers, 1 unknown, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, 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.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Keating Quarry & Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Unknown
Keating Quarry and Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Hazen Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Joy Contracting Tc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Shirley Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Szocik Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

1 since 2025

The National Weather Service names Shirley Center in 1 storm report between 2025 and 2025: 1 thunderstorm wind. 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Shirley Center	$500	In Shirley, a large tree was down on Patterson Rd.

Every storm 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
North Shirley	0.9 miles	44
Woodsville	1.4 miles	41
Shirley	2.0 miles	44
West Groton	2.5 miles	44
Vose	2.9 miles	44
Shaker Village	3.0 miles	44
Ayer	3.3 miles	41
Devenscrest	4.7 miles	41

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 Q122545426

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 610790. 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.