Needham Town Hall Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. 17 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1893.

From the record

One of 342 National Register listings published here for Norfolk County · listed in 1990 · category: District.

Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. Great Plain Ave. between Highland Ave. and Chapel St., Needham
When was it listed? November 1990
Category. district
National Register reference number. 90001756 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

142 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 142 fires within 5 miles of Needham Town Hall Historic District between 2003 and 2020, burning about 398 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
Recreation and ceremony	69
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	52
Smoking	9
Debris and open burning	7
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Other causes	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
6 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
3 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DEDHAM
3 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
23 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	WELLESLEY
21 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Needham Town Hall Historic District: 6 past producers, 1 producer, 1 unknown. 1 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.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Walpole Quarry	Stone	Past Producer
West Roxbury Crushed Stone Operatio	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Unknown
Greendale Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Hi-Way Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Town of Natick	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Town of Needham	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Town of Wellesley	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Town of Wellesley	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Maps showing this location

17 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

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

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Emery Grover Building	0.2 miles	1987
Kingsbury-Whitaker House	0.2 miles	1990
Amos Fuller House	0.3 miles	1983
Amos Fuller House	0.4 miles	1983
James Smith House	0.5 miles	1986
Tolman-Gay House	0.7 miles	1982

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 90001756 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Norfolk County	All 342 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
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.