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

South Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Shrewsbury town. It lies in ZIP code area 01545. It stands on Temple Hill. The Survey maps it on the Shrewsbury quadrangle.

South Shrewsbury within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 Shrewsbury, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of South Shrewsbury, surveyed 1887

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.

Fires nearby

46 since 2002

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 46 fires within 5 miles of South Shrewsbury between 2002 and 2020, burning about 20 acres in total. None started naturally. 6 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 burning21
Smoking10
Missing data/not specified/undetermined8
Arson/incendiarism6
Recreation and ceremony1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
18 September 2016Smoking3.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
25 August 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
21 August 2017Debris and open burning1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
13 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
24 July 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
21 July 2020Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
10 July 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,736 shown

Museums hold 1,736 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Shrewsbury between 1839 and 1975: 963 Plantae, 521 Animalia, 228 Fungi, 14 Unrecorded, 6 Protozoa, 4 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour 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 SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Sceptridium dissectum (Spreng.) LyonSceptridium dissectum (Spreng.) Lyon1899H. H. Scudder
A photograph of the species Ochrolechia tartarea, not of this specimenOchrolechia tartarea (L.) A.Massal.1839E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Carex laxiflora, not of this specimenCarex laxiflora Lam.1840Thomas NuttallCambridge.
A photograph of the species Carex vestita, not of this specimenCarex vestita Willd.1840Thomas NuttallCambridge.
A photograph of the species Mycobilimbia hypnorum, not of this specimenMycobilimbia hypnorum (Lib.) Kalb & Hafellner1848E. Tuckerman
A photograph of the species Geranium maculatum, not of this specimenGeranium maculatum L.1850not recorded
A photograph of the species Packera aurea, not of this specimenPackera aurea (L.) Á.Löve & D.Löve1850not recorded
A photograph of the species Carex aperta, not of this specimenCarex aperta Boott1853W. BoottMassachusetts
A photograph of the species Cladrastis tinctoria, not of this specimenCladrastis tinctoria Raf.1856AnonymousCambridge.
A photograph of the species Castilleja coccinea, not of this specimenCastilleja coccinea (L.) Spreng.1892E. C. SmithMarboro.
Elymus repens (L.) Gould1892Arthur B. SeymourCambridge.
Festuca pratensis Huds.1892Arthur B. SeymourCambridge.

All 1,736 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 10 workings within 5 miles of South Shrewsbury: 5 past producers, 4 producers, 1 plant. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Lead, Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Bd Bloomfield Co--Worcester, Ma.LeadPlant
Shrewsbury Trap RockStoneProducer
30 Southwest Cutoff PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
F Ang G Sand and GravelSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
F and G PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Grafton PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Sewall PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Shrewsbury PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Town of BoylstonSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Worcester Sand and GravelSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

4 since 2017

The National Weather Service names South Shrewsbury in 4 storm reports between 2017 and 2021: 2 flood, 1 flash flood, 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2021Thunderstorm WindSouth Shrewsbury$1,000In Shrewsbury, two trees were down at the intersection of Hillando Drive and Walnut Street.
June 2017FloodSouth Shrewsbury$1,000At 226 PM EST, significant flooding was reported on Oak Street in Shrewsbury.
September 2018Flash FloodSouth Shrewsbury-At 12:36 PM EST, Floral Street in Shrewsbury was flooded and impassable.
October 2017FloodSouth Shrewsbury-State Route 9 at Saybrook Road in Shrewsbury was flooded. Route 9 interchange with State Route 20...the off-ramp is flooded with cars trapped.

Every storm recorded in Worcester 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Fairlawn1.3 miles44
Shrewsbury1.4 miles44
Edgemere2.3 miles45
Lakeview2.4 miles45
Pinecrest2.5 miles45
Bloomingdale3.0 miles45
North Grafton3.0 miles45
Millbury Junction3.0 miles45

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 Q122559187The 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 610914. 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.