West Roxbury, Massachusetts

The same ground, surveyed 96 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

1893 1989

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

• Westerly Burial Groundlisted 1987

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.

• 1893 USGS Boston quadrangle1:62500, 4 printings
• 1903 USGS Boston quadrangle1:62500, 13 printings
• 1943 USGS Boston quadrangle1:125000
• 1944 USGS Newton quadrangle1:24000
• 1946 USGS Newton quadrangle1:31680, 3 printings
• 1948 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
• 1954 USGS Newton quadrangle1:25000
• 1956 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 6 printings
• 1956 USGS Newton quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
• 1958 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
• 1961 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
• 1970 USGS Newton quadrangle1:24000
• 1970 USGS Newton quadrangle1:25000
• 1977 USGS Newton quadrangle1:25000
• 1985 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000
• 1987 USGS Boston South quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
• 1989 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

An account from the chapter on Boston city. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 119 fires within 5 miles of West Roxbury between 2003 and 2020, burning about 385 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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.

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

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

• Highland
• Bellevue
• Clarendon Hills
• Roslindale
• Germantown
• Hyde Park

Every fire recorded in Suffolk County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 12,871 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Roxbury between 1810 and 1975: 4,919 Plantae, 4,068 Fungi, 3,229 Animalia, 293 Chromista, 202 Protozoa, 92 Bacteria, 68 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, 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	Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
	Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald	1900	A. P. Chute
	Thalictrum L.	1810	Boott, J.W.	Near Boston.
	Anemone L.	1815	Boott, J.	Andover Turnpike, 7 miles from Boston.
	Betula L.	1815	Boott, J.W.	Near Fresh Pond, Cambridge, 4 miles from Boston.
	Chenopodium album L.	1815	not recorded	Gathered at Bunker (properly Breed's) Hill.
	Corylus L.	1815	not recorded	Cambridge Port, 2 miles from Boston.
	Ericaceae	1815	Boott	Boston, U.S.A.
	Acanthis flammea flammea (Linnaeus, 1758)	1900	ZAPPEY, W R	ROSLINDALE
	Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
	Acer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
	Agaricus flavescens (Gillet) Sacc.	1900	G. E. Morris
	Alnus incana subsp. rugosa (Du Roi) R.T.Clausen	1900	J. Murdoch, Jr.	Roxbury

All 12,871 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of West Roxbury: 3 past producers, 1 unknown. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Every working recorded in Suffolk County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names West Roxbury in 7 storm reports between 1997 and 2024: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 hail, 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.

Every storm recorded in Suffolk County

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612406. 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.