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

South Lee, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Lee town. It lies in ZIP code area 01260. It stands on Beartown Brook. The Survey maps it on the Stockbridge quadrangle.

South Lee within Berkshire County

Then and now

1888 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 109 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of South Lee, surveyed 1997

Topographic sheet of South Lee, surveyed 1888

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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.

Photographs

1 photograph,

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.

Merrell's Tavern, Main Street, South Lee, Berkshire County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

23 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 23 fires within 5 miles of South Lee between 2003 and 2020, burning about 15 acres in total. 1 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	11
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Other causes	2
Natural	1
Recreation and ceremony	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
18 September 2019	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
13 September 2016	Other causes	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 August 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
31 August 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 July 2003	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
18 July 2019	Natural	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 May 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
13 May 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 Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,870 shown

Museums hold 1,870 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Lee between 1833 and 1975: 832 Animalia, 803 Plantae, 228 Fungi, 3 Protozoa, 2 Chromista, 2 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A W Evans, A. Brown, A. E. Treat 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
Potamogeton pusillus subsp. tenuissimus (Mert. & W.D.J.Koch) K.Richt.	1900	P. B. Weatherbee
Betula alleghaniensis Britton	1833	Collector unknown
Betula pumila L.	1833	Collector unspecified
Carex utriculata Boott	1833	W. L. Worcester
Dennstaedtia punctilobula (Michx.) T.Moore	1833	Collector unknown
Gymnocarpium dryopteris (L.) Newman	1833	Collector unknown
Parnassia caroliniana Michx.	1834	not recorded
Percopsis omiscomaycus (Walbaum, 1792)	1860	Britton McCabe	Green R. (trib. of Housatonic R.), 1 mi. S of Great Barrington on Rt. 23
Platanthera peramoena A.Gray	1863	J. T. Stewart	Glendale
Spiranthes magnicamporum Sheviak	1863	J. T. Stewart	Glendale
Acer saccharum Marshall	1897	Vail, A.M.	Tyringham
Acer spicatum Lam.	1897	Vail, A.M.	Vicinity of Tyringham

All 1,870 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 14 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of South Lee: 7 past producers, 6 producers, 1 unknown. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Marble, Dimension, Calcium, 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
Lee Lime Corp	Calcium	Past Producer	Calcite
Lee Quarry and Mill	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Lee Marble Inc Qy & Plant	Marble, Dimension	Producer
Lee White Marble Quarry	Marble, Dimension	Past Producer	Metamorphic
Abby Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Abby and Sons Inc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Beacco Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Donovan Pit & Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
East Lee Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
J Donovan and Son	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Storms nearby

2 since 1998

The National Weather Service names South Lee in 2 storm reports between 1998 and 2016: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. 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
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	South Lee	$8,000	no account filed
May 2016	Flash Flood	South Lee	-	Heavy rainfall from slow moving thunderstorms resulted in flash flooding in Lee. Fairview street was closed due to high water and a car was trapped within the flood waters on Fairview Street beneath the Massachusetts Turnpike overpass.

Every storm recorded in Berkshire 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
Stockbridge	2.4 miles	42
Lee	2.4 miles	38
East Lee	3.1 miles	38
Larrywaug	3.4 miles	42
Glendale	3.6 miles	42
Interlaken	3.8 miles	42
Mahkeenac Heights	3.8 miles	42
Beachwood	4.0 miles	42

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 607727. 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.