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

Walpole, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Walpole town. It lies in ZIP code area 02081. It stands on Spring Brook. The Survey maps it on the Norwood quadrangle. 6,119 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 148 feet above sea level.

Walpole within Norfolk County

Population over time

2 figures

Walpole grew from 5,918 to 6,119 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	5,918
2020	6,119	+201 (+3%)

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Walpole, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Walpole, 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.

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.

Twenty-mile Stone, Town Hall vicinity, Walpole, Norfolk County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

143 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 143 fires within 5 miles of Walpole between 2007 and 2020, burning about 50 acres in total. 1 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
Recreation and ceremony	49
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	42
Smoking	31
Debris and open burning	13
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Arson/incendiarism	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Natural	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
9 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DOVER
5 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	SHARON
26 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	SHARON
25 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MEDFIELD
23 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	SHARON
22 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 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 Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 5,611 shown

Museums hold 5,611 specimens collected within 10 miles of Walpole between 1846 and 1975: 2,606 Animalia, 1,506 Plantae, 1,320 Fungi, 128 Protozoa, 24 Chromista, 22 Unrecorded, 5 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, 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.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Hieracium venosum L.	1900	E. F. Williams	Blue Hills Reservation
Hypoprepia fucosa Hübner, 1831	1900	not recorded	Sherborn
Galium verum L.	1846	Kupell
Carex bullata Schkuhr	1853	Collector unknown	Houghtons Pond.
Carex albicans Willd. ex Spreng.	1854	W. Boott	West Quincy: Blue Hills Reservation, River Road
Grammia arge Drury, 1773	1867	not recorded	Sherborn
Carex swanii (Fernald) Mack.	1870	Joseph Blake	Sharon
Chamaecyparis thyoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.	1870	Joseph Blake	Sharon
Chantransia hermannii (Roth) Desvaux	1870	F. W. Dewart
Trichophorum planifolium (Spreng.) Palla	1870	Joseph Blake	Sharon
Carex panicea L.	1871	not recorded
Hamamelis virginiana L.	1871	T. Morong

All 5,611 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 Walpole: 9 past producers, 7 producers, 1 unknown, 1 occurrence. 7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Iron, Stone. 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
Needham Pit	Stone	Past Producer
Walpole Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Bates Bros Quarry	Granite	Producer
Hopkinton Quarry	Granite	Producer
Iron Mountain Mine	Iron	Past Producer
Thorn Mountain Prospect	Iron	Occurrence
Chestnut Street Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Dedham Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Dedham Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Farnham Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

31 since 1997

The National Weather Service names Walpole in 31 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 15 thunderstorm wind, 6 flash flood, 4 hail, 3 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 2009	Lightning	East Walpole	$1,000,000	Lightning struck an eight unit condominium building setting fire to the attic. The fire engulfed the entire building, destroying the condos. One firefighter suffered from heat exhaustion while trying to extinguish the fire.
June 1998	Flash Flood	Walpole	$570,000	Spring Brook
June 1998	Flash Flood	Walpole	$570,000	Diamond Brook
June 1998	Flash Flood	Walpole	$570,000	Mine Brook
June 1998	Flash Flood	East Walpole	$570,000	Traphole Brook
June 1998	Flash Flood	Walpole	$570,000	Tributary to Traphole Brook
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$50,000	Numerous trees down throughout Walpole, including on School, Mason, Maple, Kendall, Alton, Rockwood, and Washington Streets. A tree fell on a house on Park Lane.
August 2006	Lightning	Walpole	$50,000	no account filed
August 2013	Flood	Walpole	$15,000	School Street was flooded in front of town hall. Several cars got stuck in the flood waters.
August 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$15,000	no account filed
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$10,000	A large tree on North Street was downed onto power lines and a house by thunderstorm winds.
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$10,000	Trees and wires in Walpole were downed by thunderstorm winds.
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$5,000	A large tree and wires were downed onto a house in Walpole.
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$3,000	A tree was downed onto a grill in Walpole.
August 2008	Flood	Walpole	$3,000	One to two feet of water closed the West Street Bridge in Walpole. Elm and East Streets also were closed due to flooding. In Norfolk, Valley Street and Route 1A were closed with 18 inches of water flowing over the roads. Five and a half inches of rain fell in Wrentham in less than three hours. The power plant was flooded forcing some evacuations. Common Street, Route 1A and Route 140 (North of Thurston Street) were all closed due to flooding. The park was under one foot of water.
August 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	$800	In Walpole, a tree and wires were down on South St.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	East Walpole	$500	In Sharon at 605 PM EDT (505 PM EST) a tree was down on Norwood Street at Avalon Drive.
September 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	East Walpole	$100	In Sharon, a large tree was down across a driveway.
July 2025	Flash Flood	Walpole	-	In Walpole, a car was stuck in flooding in front of Town Hall.
April 2018	Flood	East Walpole	-	At 5:55 PM EST, an amateur radio operator reported Walcott Avenue at Francis William Bird Park as flooded and impassable.
June 2010	Hail	Walpole	-	Quarter sized hail fell on Washington Street.
August 2008	Hail	Walpole	-	Penny size hail fell at the Walpole Country Club.
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	-	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	-	no account filed
June 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	-	no account filed
August 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	-	no account filed
January 1999	Heavy Rain	Walpole	-	no account filed
July 1999	Hail	East Walpole	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Walpole	-	no account filed
July 1997	Hail	Walpole	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Norfolk 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
Walpole Heights	1.3 miles	41
Plimptonville	1.4 miles	41
Cedar	1.5 miles	39
Cedar Hill	1.9 miles	43
West Walpole	2.0 miles	43
East Walpole	2.5 miles	41
South Walpole	2.7 miles	39
Campbells Station	2.7 miles	43

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 Walpole	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q7963722	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 612019. 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.