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

Winchendon, Massachusetts

36 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Winchendon town. It lies in ZIP code area 01475. It stands on North Branch Millers River. The Survey maps it on the Winchendon quadrangle. 4,160 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 997 feet above sea level.

Winchendon within Worcester County

Population over time

2 figures

Winchendon fell from 4,213 to 4,160 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	4,213
2020	4,160	-53 (-1%)

Then and now

1887 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 101 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Winchendon, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Winchendon, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

36 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

14 since 2012

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Winchendon between 2012 and 2020, burning about 10 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.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	7
Recreation and ceremony	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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
3 July 2016	Recreation and ceremony	4.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 June 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 May 2018	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
31 May 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 May 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
20 May 2018	Misuse of fire by a minor	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 410 shown

Museums hold 410 specimens collected within 10 miles of Winchendon between 1870 and 1973: 213 Plantae, 139 Animalia, 57 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. F. Newton, A. J. Stone 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
Osmunda regalis L.	1900	Bates, J.A.	Royalston.
Carex maritima Gunnerus	1870	J. W. Congdon	Wellville
Veronica L.	1871	not recorded
Drosera rotundifolia L.	1882	not recorded
Linnaea borealis subsp. longiflora (Torrey) Hultén	1882	not recorded
Moneses uniflora (L.) A.Gray	1882	M. A. M.	Winchendon
Polygala paucifolia Willd.	1882	M. A. M.
Utricularia vulgaris subsp. macrorhiza (Leconte) Clausen	1886	M., K. M.
Vaccinium macrocarpon Aiton	1886	not recorded
Peltandra virginica (L.) Schott	1892	A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.	1892	not recorded
Carex scoparia Schkuhr ex Willd.	1896	W. Deane

All 410 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

4 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Winchendon: 3 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.

Site	Commodity	Status
Lost Lake Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Sibley Road Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Winchendon Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Winchendon Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

13 since 1998

The National Weather Service names Winchendon in 13 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 7 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 2 lightning. The reports record 2 deaths. 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 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	2 killed, $15,000	no account filed
July 2006	Lightning	Winchendon	$25,000	no account filed
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	$20,000	no account filed
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	$10,000	no account filed
July 2016	Lightning	Winchendon	$3,000	Lightning struck a tree, causing it to fall and cause damage to a nearby house.
May 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	$2,000	no account filed
May 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	$800	In Winchendon, a tree and power lines were down near the intersection of Spring Street and Water Street.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	$500	Large branches were downed by thunderstorm winds.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Winchendon	$300	In Winchendon, a tree was down on Otter River Rd.
August 2015	Hail	Winchendon	-	Quarter to ping pong ball size hail fell across Winchendon.
August 2015	Hail	Winchendon	-	no account filed
June 2011	Hail	Winchendon	-	no account filed
June 2011	Hail	Winchendon	-	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
Glenallen	1.0 miles	36
Waterville	1.5 miles	36
Hydeville	1.5 miles	36
Winchendon Springs	1.6 miles	36
Winchendon Center	1.7 miles	36
Pequoig	2.2 miles	36
Bullardville	2.3 miles	36
Harrisville	2.7 miles	36

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 Winchendon	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q8023765	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 610005. 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.