Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2022 census, the city had a population of 37,720. Located 8 miles (13 km) north of Springfield, Holyoke is part of the Springfield Metropolitan Area, one of the two distinct metropolitan areas in Massachusetts.
The Holyoke Canal System is a system of power canals in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It is split into three canals based on elevation and distance from the inlet at the Holyoke Dam- the First Level Canal, Second Level Canal, and Third Level Canal. Constructed over a period between 1847 and 1892, the Canal System, along with the Dam, is recognized as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for its use in the development of the Venturi meter by Clemens Herschel, the first means of measuring large-scale flows, and the McCormick-Holyoke Turbine by John B. McCormick, which doubled the efficiency of turbines to more than 80% in its time.
The Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, or T‑T, was an afternoon daily newspaper covering the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, United States, and adjacent portions of Hampden County and Hampshire County.
Wistariahurst is a historic house museum and the former estate of the Skinner family, located at 238 Cabot Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It was built in 1868 for William Skinner, the owner of a successful silk spinning and textile business, and is named for the abundant wisteria vines which cascade across its eastern facade. Originally constructed in Williamsburg in 1868, the mansion designed by Northampton architect William Ferro Pratt was moved to Holyoke in 1874, following the devastating flood which swept away the original Skinner mills. Following the death of Belle Skinner, its music room was operated as a private museum from 1930 to 1959, housing the Belle Skinner Collection of Old Musical Instruments, before their donation by the family to Yale University. Since 1959 it has been operated as the Wistariahurst Museum, and is open to the public. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Elmwood is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the south of the city center, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from downtown. Elmwood is historically Holyoke's oldest village; predating the construction of the Hadley Falls Dam, it originated as part of the 3rd parish of West Springfield, and originally was known as Baptist Village as Holyoke's first and oldest congregation is the First Baptist Church, formally established in 1803, but maintaining a meetinghouse since 1792. Today the neighborhood contains many historic Victorian houses and about 510 acres (210 ha) of mixed residential and commercial zoning, as well as Holyoke High School, William R. Peck Middle School, Fitzpatrick Ice Skating Rink, and Mackenzie Stadium.
George Clinton Ewing was a salesman, wainwright, land agent, superintendent, assessor, selectman, state representative, and most notably one of the chief founders of Holyoke, Massachusetts; he is credited as having first brought the idea of building a dam and industrial city at Hadley Falls to investors in Boston, New York, Hartford, and St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1846.
Springdale is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the south of the city center, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from downtown, on the banks of the Connecticut River. The neighborhood features Springdale Park, originally known as Riverside Park, which was designed by the influential Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm, as well as light industry and machine shops, residential housing, and the central supply warehouse of Holyoke Public Schools. The mixed zoning neighborhood was developed as a streetcar suburb by brickmaker John J. Prew, who gave the area its name and devised the first street plans and building lots for the area in 1887 as housing for millworkers of South Holyoke. Since 1984, Springdale Park has hosted the city's annual Western Massachusetts Puerto Rican Parade, a three-day annual event in June celebrating the city's Latin culture and music.
Oakdale is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the west of the city center, adjacent to downtown. Developed as a streetcar suburb in the late nineteenth century, today the neighborhood contains many Victorian houses, and about 460 acres (190 ha) of mixed residential and commercial zoning, as well as Forestdale Cemetery, Saint Jerome Cemetery, Rohan Park, and Holyoke Medical Center.
Holyoke Medical Center, formerly known as Holyoke City Hospital, is a full-service, community and regional non-profit medical center located in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Holyoke Medical has 198 beds in the main hospital and runs a comprehensive healthcare system that includes the VNA, River Valley Counseling Center and Western Mass Physician Associates, a physician practice group. The service area for hospital covers Greater Holyoke area, with towns in both Hampshire and Hampden County including Holyoke, Chicopee, South Hadley, Granby, Easthampton, Southampton, West Springfield, and Belchertown.
The Holyoke Street Railway (HSR) was an interurban streetcar and bus system operating in Holyoke, Massachusetts as well as surrounding communities with connections in Amherst, Belchertown, Chicopee, Easthampton, Granby, Northampton, Pelham, South Hadley, Sunderland, Westfield, and West Springfield. Throughout its history the railway system shaped the cultural institutions of Mount Tom, being operator of the mountain's famous summit houses, one of which hosted President McKinley, the Mount Tom Railroad, and the trolley park at the opposite end of this funicular line, Mountain Park.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Holyoke saw an influx of Franco-Americans, predominantly French-Canadians, who immigrated to Massachusetts to work in the city's growing textile and paper mills. By 1900, 1 in 3 people in Holyoke were of French-Canadian descent, and a 1913 survey of French Americans in the United States found Holyoke, along with other Massachusetts cities, to have a larger community of French or French-Canadian born residents than those of New Orleans or Chicago at that time. Initially faced with discrimination for the use of their labor by mill owners to undermine unionization, as well as for their creation of separate French institutions as part of the La Survivance movement, this demographic quickly gained representation in the city's development and civic institutions. Holyoke was at one time a cultural hub for French-Canadian Americans; the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of America was first organized in the city in 1899, along with a number of other institutions, including theater and drama societies from which famed vaudevillian Eva Tanguay was first discovered, and regular publications, with its largest French weekly newspaper, La Justice, published from 1904 to 1964. The city was also home to author Jacques Ducharme, whose 1943 book The Shadows of the Trees, published by Harper, was one of the first non-fiction English accounts of New England's French and French-Canadian diaspora.
The Parsons Paper Company was an American pulp and paper company specializing in cotton-based fine writing papers, based in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Founded in 1853 by Joseph C. Parsons, it was the first and, as of 2023, the last paper manufacturer extant in that city, from 1989 until its liquidation in 2005. In 2008 the company's primary mill was razed in a large fire.
Despite representing a significantly smaller population than their Irish, French, Polish, or Puerto Rican counterparts, in the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, German immigrants predominantly from Saxony and Rhineland played a significant economic, cultural, and political role in the history of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The influx of these immigrants can largely be attributed to a single mill and millworker complex, the Germania Woolen Mills, which formed the basis of the immigrant colony that would make the ward encompassing the South Holyoke neighborhood that with the highest German population per capita, in all of New England by 1875. Along with unionization efforts by the Irish community, Germans would also play a key role in the city and region's socialist labor movements as workers organized for higher pay and improved living conditions in the textile and paper mill economies.
This is a timeline of the history of the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA.
From the beginning of the city's history as the western bank of Springfield, Irish families have resided in and contributed to the development of the civics and culture of Holyoke, Massachusetts. Among the first appellations given to the city were the handles "Ireland", "Ireland Parish", or "Ireland Depot", after the village was designated the 3rd Parish of West Springfield in 1786. Initially occupied by a mixture of Yankee English and Irish Protestant families, many of whom belonged to the Baptist community of Elmwood, from 1840 through 1870 the area saw a large influx of Irish Catholic workers, immigrants to the United States, initially from the exodus of the Great Famine. During that period Irish immigrants and their descendants comprised the largest demographic in Holyoke and built much of the early city's infrastructure, including the dams, canals, and factories. Facing early hardships from Anti-Irish sentiment, Holyoke's Irish would largely build the early labor movement of the city's textile and paper mills, and remained active in the national Irish nationalist and Gaelic revival movements of the United States, with the Holyoke Philo-Celtic Society being one of 13 signatory organizations creating the Gaelic League of America, an early 20th century American counterpart of Conradh na Gaeilge.
As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 39,880 people, 15,361 households, and 9,329 families residing in the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The population density was 723.6/km2 (1,874/mi²). There were 16,384 housing units at an average density of 277.2/km2 (718.6/mi²).
William Churchill Hammond was an American organist, choirmaster, and music educator. He is noted for being one of the founding members of the American Guild of Organists, and for a lengthy tenure on the faculty of Mount Holyoke College.
