Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Grove Street School
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1996. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
one of 500 National Register listings in Worcester County · listed in 1996 · category: Building · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Worcester County.
National Register reference number.96000737- 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
64 since 2015
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 64 fires within 5 miles of Grove Street School between
2015 and 2020, burning about 43 acres in total. None started naturally. 8 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 burning
22
Recreation and ceremony
16
Arson/incendiarism
8
Equipment and vehicle use
5
Smoking
5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
4
Railroad operations and maintenance
2
Other causes
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,483 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Grove Street School between 1839 and
1975: 915 Plantae, 314 Animalia, 235 Fungi, 16 Unrecorded, 2 Protozoa, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
6 workings within 5 miles of Grove Street School: 6 past producers.
None of them 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.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Spencer, the town this property stands in, in 28 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 15 thunderstorm wind, 5 lightning, 5 hail, 2 flash flood.
The reports record 2 injuries. 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.
Lightning struck near a house on Bay Path Road. While several homeowners claimed to have experienced electrical problems with the lightning strike, firefighters found no damage within the houses. Two teenagers (one male, one female) outside manning a yard sale felt the lightning shock. One (male) declined transportation to the hospital, the other (female) was transported and kept overnight for observation.
Lightning caused a massive 6-alarm fire that destroyed a 160-year old church in Spencer, MA. The steeple of the First Congregational United Church came crashing down and this made national news. The rest of the building was destroyed. A detailed analysis of lightning strike data showed that one strike a little north of the church occurred at 2:24:47 PM EDT but a closer one occurred at 2:29:16 PM EDT. That was most likely the one that caused the blaze. No injuries were reported. Damage figure is estimated.
A CoCoRaHS observer recorded a 60 mph wind gust on their home weather station. A trained spotter reported eight inch diameter limbs downed along Browning Pond Road at the same time.
More than three feet of street flooding occurred on South Spencer Road near the railroad overpass at Lyford Cross Road in Spencer, MA. The road was impassable.
Several thunderstorms moved south-southeast through Franklin and Worcester Counties. These storms became severe in several communities. Large hail fell at scattered locations including one-inch diameter hail at the National Weather Service Office at the Worcester Municipal Airport. In some places, marble-size hail was reported covering the ground a half-hour after the storm had ended. A couple of school children reportedly received bruises on their arms from the hailstones. A National Weather Service damage survey in Spencer confirmed that trees one foot in diameter were uprooted by thunderstorm wind gusts.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
10,397 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Statement of significance
Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) [X A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. L B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. LX C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type,period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. - D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.
Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: A owned by a religious institution or used for religious purposes. L B removed from its original location. - C a birthplace or grave. - D a cemetery. - E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. F a commemorative property. G less than 50 years of age or achieved significance within the past 50 years.
Worcester, Massachusetts County and State Areas of Signiticance (Enter categories from instructions) Education Community Planning & Development Architecture Period of Significance 1876 - 1946 Significant Dates 1876, 1883 Significant Person (Complete if Criterion B is marked above) Cultural Affiliation Architect/Builder 1876 - Frank Moses, builder 1883 D Fuller & Delano, Architects Narrative Statement of Significance (Explain the significance of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) 9.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 96000737, 32 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
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.
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.
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.
Block
