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

South Lowell, Massachusetts

41 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 01852. It stands on Marginal Brook. The Survey maps it on the Billerica quadrangle.

South Lowell 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 South Lowell, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of South Lowell, 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.

In the 1908 county history

160,056 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 Lowell City covers the township.

Read the chapter on Lowell City - 160,056 words.

Fires nearby

127 since 2001

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 127 fires within 5 miles of South Lowell between 2001 and 2020, burning about 62 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 24 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
Debris and open burning	36
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	35
Arson/incendiarism	24
Recreation and ceremony	11
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Smoking	4
Natural	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
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
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
17 August 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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 nearby

12 of 581 shown

Museums hold 581 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Lowell between 1898 and 1975: 380 Plantae, 163 Animalia, 32 Fungi, 3 Chromista, 2 Protozoa, 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
Esox americanus Gmelin, 1789	1898	E. Preble	Maple Meadow Brook near Wilmington, Massachusetts
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
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Betula alleghaniensis Britton	1900	E. F. Williams
Betula nigra L.	1900	not recorded

All 581 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 18 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 18 workings within 5 miles of South Lowell: 8 past producers, 5 producers, 4 plants, 1 unknown. 9 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Graphite, Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper. 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
Dracut Ni Mine/Nickel Mine Hill	Nickel, Gold, Silver, Copper	Past Producer
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
George Brox Inc	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Amasa W Brown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Amasa W. Brown Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Dracut Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

2 since 2017

The National Weather Service names South Lowell in 2 storm reports between 2017 and 2023: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 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 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	South Lowell	$1,000	At 943 PM EST, a tree was reported down on Pike Street in Tewksbury.
August 2023	Flood	South Lowell	-	In Tewksbury, Chapman Rd was flooded at Jefferson 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
Oaklands	1.0 miles	48
Bleachery	1.1 miles	48
Wamesit	1.3 miles	48
Belvidere	1.3 miles	48
Ayres City	1.4 miles	48
Lowell	1.8 miles	48
North Tewksbury	2.4 miles	38
North Billerica	2.5 miles	41

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611876. 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.