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

Sturbridge, Massachusetts

39 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Sturbridge town. It lies in ZIP code area 01566. It stands on Honey Brook. The Survey maps it on the Southbridge quadrangle. 2,385 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 587 feet above sea level.

Sturbridge within Worcester County

Population over time

2 figures

Sturbridge grew from 2,253 to 2,385 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	2,253
2020	2,385	+132 (+6%)

Then and now

1887 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 98 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Sturbridge, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Sturbridge, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

39 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

30 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 30 fires within 5 miles of Sturbridge between 2015 and 2020, burning about 10 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 2 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
Smoking	7
Debris and open burning	5
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
Natural	2
Recreation and ceremony	2

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
17 September 2020	Natural	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 August 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 August 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
30 July 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
19 July 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 June 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
27 June 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 June 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 335 shown

Museums hold 335 specimens collected within 10 miles of Sturbridge between 1874 and 1975: 172 Plantae, 92 Animalia, 70 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. F. Hill, H. St. John, G.S. Torrey, A. R. Hodgdon; L. B. Smith, A. R. Hodgdon; F. L. Steele 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
Carex tenera var. tenera	1899	R. M. Harper
Nitella megacarpa (T.F.A.) R.D.W.	1874	Piper, S. M.
Dendroica petechia aestiva (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)	1882	G.L.	Warren
Sphagnum tenellum (Schimp.) H.Klinggr.	1889	Edwin Faxon	Hammond's Pond
Gavia immer (Brunnich, 1764)	1890	Jones, Clinton Mellen	Southbridge
Diphyscium foliosum (Hedw.) D.Mohr	1891	Lucien M. Underwood
Lycaenidae	1894	not recorded
Cirsium muticum Michx.	1897	E. L. Morris	Charlton
Juncus tenuis Willd.	1897	E. L. Morris	Charlton
Apocynum androsaemifolium L.	1898	E. L. Morris	Wales
Asclepias purpurascens L.	1898	E. L. Morris	Wales
Alyssum alyssoides (L.) L.	1899	R. M. Harper

All 335 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

7 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Sturbridge: 7 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Ciesla Brothers Inc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Ciesla Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Highway Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Holland Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Landfill Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Town of Southbridge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Town of Sturbridge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

8 since 1995

The National Weather Service names Sturbridge in 8 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail. 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
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Sturbridge	$10,000	A boat dock was blown over, large branches downed, and a screen house was damaged by thunderstorm winds on Lane 8 near South Pond.
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Sturbridge	$5,000	A tree on Lane 7 of South Pond was downed by thunderstorm winds, resulting in a power outage.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Sturbridge	$2,000	Large branches along Interstate 84 were downed by thunderstorm winds.
May 2024	Hail	Sturbridge	-	In Fiskdale and Southbridge, quarter sized hail fell.
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Sturbridge	-	A tree and wires were down in Sturbridge.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Sturbridge	-	Trees down.
April 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Sturbridge	-	Trees were blown down on a local golf course.
June 2011	Hail	Sturbridge	-	no account filed

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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Old Sturbridge Village	1.1 miles	39
Snellville (historical)	1.2 miles	39
Robinson Crusoe Camp	1.4 miles	39
Fiskdale	1.9 miles	39
Globe Village	2.4 miles	39
Westville	2.7 miles	39
Southbridge	3.3 miles	39
Sandersdale	4.4 miles	39

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.

Wikipedia article on Sturbridge	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q7628922	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 610150. 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.