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

West Bridgewater, Massachusetts

39 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in West Bridgewater town. It lies in ZIP code area 02379. It stands on West Meadow Brook. The Survey maps it on the Brockton quadrangle. 7,707 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 66 feet above sea level.

West Bridgewater within Plymouth County

Population over time

2 figures

West Bridgewater grew from 6,916 to 7,707 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.

YearPeople Change
20106,916
20207,707+791 (+11%)

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 West Bridgewater, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of West Bridgewater, surveyed 1886

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.

Photographs

1 photograph, 1940

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.

Mrs. Antonio Pogani, Italian poultry farmer. West Bridgewater, Massachusetts
Mrs. Antonio Pogani, Italian poultry farmer. West Bridgewater, Massachusetts
Delano, Jack, 1940. Library of Congress

Fires nearby

312 since 2004

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 312 fires within 5 miles of West Bridgewater between 2004 and 2020, burning about 132 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 7 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 burning157
Missing data/not specified/undetermined105
Misuse of fire by a minor25
Smoking8
Recreation and ceremony7
Arson/incendiarism7
Natural3

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
9 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBROCKTON
8 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBROCKTON
8 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlABINGTON
6 September 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBROCKTON
4 September 2017Misuse of fire by a minor1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBROCKTON

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Plymouth County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 725 shown

Museums hold 725 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Bridgewater between 1855 and 1975: 394 Plantae, 206 Fungi, 122 Animalia, 2 Unrecorded, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour, A. Grimell 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
A photograph of the species Condylura cristata, not of this specimenCondylura cristata (Linnaeus, 1758)1855Preparator(s): Edwin V. KomarekMiddleboro
A photograph of the species Microtus pennsylvanicus, not of this specimenMicrotus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus (Ord, 1815)1855John W. JenksMiddleboro
A photograph of the species Peromyscus leucopus, not of this specimenPeromyscus leucopus (Rafinesque, 1818)1855John W. JenksMiddleboro
A photograph of the species Baptisia tinctoria, not of this specimenBaptisia tinctoria (L.) R.Br.1866Joseph BlakeMiddleboro
A photograph of the species Carex bullata, not of this specimenCarex bullata Willd.1866Rev. J. BlakeMiddleborough
A photograph of the species Arethusa bulbosa, not of this specimenArethusa bulbosa L.1899J. Murdoch, Jr.Middleborough
A photograph of the species Carex comosa, not of this specimenCarex comosa Boott1899J. Murdoch, Jr.Middleborough
A photograph of the species Carex crinita, not of this specimenCarex crinita Lam.1899J. Murdoch, Jr.Middleborough
A photograph of the species Carex folliculata, not of this specimenCarex folliculata L.1899J. Murdoch, Jr.Middleborough
Carex merritt-fernaldii Mack.1899J. Murdoch, Jr.Middleborough
A photograph of the species Carex virescens, not of this specimenCarex virescens Muhl. ex Willd.1899J. Murdoch, Jr.Middleborough
A photograph of the species Dendroica petechia, not of this specimenDendroica petechia aestiva (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)1899Arthur C. DykeBridgewater

All 725 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 West Bridgewater: 6 past producers, 1 producer. 1 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Bridgewater Sand and Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Bridgewater Town PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Bridgewater Town PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Brockton PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Brockton Sand & Gravel Company PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Gerald Kelleher Pit and PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Gourdin PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Plymouth County

Storms nearby

7 since 1998

The National Weather Service names West Bridgewater in 7 storm reports between 1998 and 2006: 3 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 heavy rain, 1 lightning. 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 2006LightningWest Bridgewater$200,000no account filed
August 2003Thunderstorm WindWest Bridgewater$15,000no account filed
April 2003Heavy RainWest Bridgewater-no account filed
June 2000HailWest Bridgewater-no account filed
August 2000Thunderstorm WindWest Bridgewater-no account filed
August 2000HailWest Bridgewater-no account filed
July 1998HailWest Bridgewater-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Plymouth 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
Bennetts Corner0.3 miles39
Elm Square0.7 miles39
Matfield Corner0.8 miles39
Matfield1.2 miles37
Westdale1.3 miles37
Brooks Place1.4 miles39
West Meadow1.5 miles39
Matfield Junction1.6 miles37

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 West BridgewaterAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2416264The 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 598559. 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.