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 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,247. 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.
William Whiting was an American businessman and politician from Holyoke, Massachusetts. Whiting descended from an English family who first settled in Lynn, Massachusetts, during 1636.
Mountain Park, located on Mount Tom in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was originally built as a trolley park by the Holyoke Street Railway Company. Trolley parks were built just outside populated areas to encourage trolley usage on weekends. The Holyoke Street Railway company created two attractions, Mountain Park toward the base of Mount Tom, and a large house on the summit of the mountain.
Loew's State Theater can refer to any of various movie palaces at one time owned by Loew's, including:
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.
Holyoke City Hall is the historic city hall of Holyoke, Massachusetts. It is located at 536 Dwight Street, on the south east corner of High Street and Dwight Street. Serving both as the city administrative center and a public timepiece for the industrial city's workers, construction began on the Gothic Revival structure in 1871 to a design by architect Charles B. Atwood. Difficulties and delays in construction were compounded by Atwood's failure to deliver updated drawings in a timely manner, and the design work was turned over to Henry F. Kilburn in 1874. The building was completed two years later at a cost of $500,000. It has housed city offices since then.
The Victory Theatre is a theater in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It was built in 1919 and opened in 1920 by the Goldstein Brothers Amusement Company. The architecture is in the Art Deco style and is considered the last of its type between Boston and Albany. The Victory, a 1,600 seat Broadway-style theater has been derelict since 1979. Bought by Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA) in 2009, the Victory will be returned by MIFA, to its role as a major performing arts center for the entire region. Fundraising for the 61 million dollar project continues through private, individual, corporate, and foundation donations, public grants, and State and Federal Historic Tax Credits and New Market Tax Credits. Recently the City of Holyoke made a 2 Million commitment in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to the Victory and that the project anticipates funding of $3.5 Million to be allocated to build on these city funds through Governor Healey's capital spending plan.
The Academy of Music Theatre is located in and owned by the City of Northampton, Massachusetts.
The Paramount Theater is an historic theater located at 1676-1708 Main Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Built in 1926 out of part of the grand Massasoit House hotel at a cost of over $1 million, the Paramount Theater was the most ornate picture palace in Western Massachusetts. As of 2011, The Paramount is in the midst of a $1.725 million renovation to once again become a theater after decades as a disco and concert hall,, when it was the center of Springfield's club scene. In 2018 the building's owners, the New England Farm Workers Council, announced plans to redevelop it in tandem with a new adjacent hotel building. In a push to renovate the Paramount along with Holyoke's Victory Theater, in October 2018, the administration of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced a $2.5 million grant to assist the project, on top of a $4 million federal loan guarantee. Pending finalizing funding for the combined restoration and new hotel, no construction timeline has been presented as of 2024.
Ingleside is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the south of the city center, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) from downtown. The neighborhood features access to the Connecticut River through the Sue Ellen Panitch River Center and the Land of Providence reservation. Ingleside is also home to the Holyoke Mall, the Nuestras Raices farm, the Sisters of Providence of Holyoke, the Providence Behavioral Health Hospital, and several recreational and historical venues.
The Valley Arena Gardens, most commonly referred to as the Valley Arena, was a sporting and entertainment venue in Holyoke, Massachusetts, best known for hosting weekly boxing matches which included Rocky Marciano's debut professional fight. Though best known for its history as a boxing venue, the Valley Arena also hosted wrestling, basketball, roller hockey, miniature golf and featured its own restaurant. As a nightclub and theatre in the round venue it also hosted an array of vaudeville acts such as The Three Stooges and Bela Lugosi, as well as renowned musicians including Count Basie, Duke Ellington, The Ink Spots, The Dorsey Brothers, The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Sarah Vaughan, and The Temptations. In an interview with Woody Herman and band alumni, Jack Dulong, saxophonist and member of Herman's "Third Herd", described it as "an 'institution' for big bands."
James Amasa Clough, often referred to as James A. Clough or J. A. Clough, was an American architect, carpenter, and contractor, who was active in New England, especially prominent in Western Massachusetts, and whose work shaped much of the architectural landscape of Holyoke during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He would design several commercial blocks and public buildings there, such as the Holyoke Public Library, Canoe Club and the Mount Tom Summit House. The principal architect of the firm Clough & Reid, much of his work appeared under this name after 1890, when he made William B. Reid a partner- Reid having spent several years prior as Clough's draftsman. He remained principal of this firm until his retirement in 1907. One of Clough's other protégés, George P. B. Alderman, went on to establish his own architectural firm.
Oscar Beauchemin was an American architect, and civil engineer based out of Holyoke, Massachusetts who designed a number of tenements and commercial blocks in the Greater Springfield area, and whose work was prominent in the Main Street architectural landscape of the Springdale neighborhood of Holyoke, Massachusetts.
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.
John Bailey McElfatrick (1828–1906) was an architect known for his design of theaters in the United States and Canada. He eventually went into practice with his sons William H. McElfatrick and John Morgan McElfatrick (1853-1891) in the firm J. B. McElfatrick & Sons.
The Flats is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the east of the city center, adjacent to the downtown. Although it lies at one of the lowest elevations in Holyoke, its name derives not from topography but from the brick tenement "flats" which characterized its architecture throughout much of its history. Historically the area has also been associated with the name Depot Hill, as it was the location of the city's first freight and passenger railway stations; passenger service was restored at Holyoke station in 2015, following a period of absence after 1967. A section of the neighborhood between Lyman and Appleton Street to north and south respectively, and between Race and Bowers Street to the east and west is also known as Depot Square. Today the area features the Holyoke Innovation District, Canal System, Hadley Falls Company Housing District, Marcella Kelly Elementary School, local Amtrak station and 275 acres (111 ha) of residential, commercial, and industrial zoning.
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.
Clarence Sumner Luce (1852–1924) was an American architect who practiced first in Boston, then at Newport, Rhode Island, and finally in New York. He is best known for his design for the Holyoke Opera House, and his designs for a series of Newport houses.
