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

West Oxford, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1889 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Oxford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01540. It stands on Little River. The Survey maps it on the Webster quadrangle.

West Oxford within Worcester County

Then and now

1889 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 100 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 Oxford, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of West Oxford, surveyed 1889

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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

67 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 67 fires within 5 miles of West Oxford between 2007 and 2020, burning about 32 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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 burning26
Recreation and ceremony13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined11
Railroad operations and maintenance6
Smoking4
Arson/incendiarism3
Equipment and vehicle use3
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
25 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
15 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
15 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
8 August 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 August 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 August 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 August 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
9 July 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder 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 573 shown

Museums hold 573 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Oxford between 1850 and 1975: 268 Animalia, 226 Plantae, 66 Fungi, 10 Protozoa, 2 Chromista, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. S. Pease, 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
A photograph of the species Cladonia cornucopioides, not of this specimenCladonia cornucopioides F.Wilson1850J. L. RussellLeicester
A photograph of the species Hyla versicolor, not of this specimenHyla versicolor LeConte, 18251857Weinland, David Friedrich
A photograph of the species Bufo americanus, not of this specimenBufo americanus Holbrook, 18361859not recorded
A photograph of the species Pseudacris crucifer, not of this specimenPseudacris crucifer (Wied-Neuwied, 1838)1859Weinland, David Friedrich
A photograph of the species Rana pipiens, not of this specimenRana pipiens Schreber, 17821859Weinland, David Friedrich
A photograph of the species Rana sylvatica, not of this specimenRana sylvatica LeConte, 18251859Agassiz, Jean Louis Rodolphe
A photograph of the species Notophthalmus viridescens, not of this specimenNotophthalmus viridescens (Rafinesque, 1820)1860Agassiz
A photograph of the species Clemmys insculpta, not of this specimenClemmys insculpta Fitzinger, 18351864Salmin
A photograph of the species Adiantum pedatum, not of this specimenAdiantum pedatum L.1866Collector(s): Elizabeth Emerson Atwater; Preparator(s): Alex LorenzLeicester
Sterna hirundo hirundo Linnaeus, 17581892Babbitt, J PMassachusetts
Accipiter striatus Vieillot, 18081894not recordedMASSACHUSETTS: Ponkahog
Leucothoe racemosa (L.) A.Gray1895T. W. EdmondsonMillbury

All 573 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 14 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of West Oxford: 11 past producers, 3 producers. 3 still produce. 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
Charlton PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Highway PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Old Webster Road PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Oxford PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Oxford Quarry Plant #8Sand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Ricciardi Asphalt CoSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Robbins Sand and GravelSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Scavone Construction CoSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Scavone Construction CoSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Southbridge PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

1 since 2018

The National Weather Service names West Oxford in 1 storm report between 2018 and 2018: 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
September 2018FloodWest Oxford-At 12:51 AM, State Route 12 (Main Street) in Oxford was flooded and impassable near the Rite Aid pharmacy.

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
Grand View Estates1.0 miles42
Hodges Village1.1 miles42
Buffumville1.3 miles42
Community Park (historical)1.4 miles42
Oxford1.6 miles43
South Charlton2.0 miles42
Orchard Hills Estates2.7 miles43
Sunnyside2.7 miles42

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 Q122598152The 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 610299. 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.