Holyoke, Massachusetts

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 2012, the city had an estimated population of 40,135. Sitting eight miles north of Springfield, Holyoke is part of the Springfield Metropolitan Area, one of the two distinct metropolitan areas in Massachusetts.

History

Englishmen first arrived in the Connecticut River Valley in 1633 — a post was established at Windsor, Connecticut by traders from the Plymouth Plantation. In 1636, Massachusetts Bay Colony assistant treasurer and Puritan iconoclast William Pynchon led a group of settlers from Roxbury, Massachusetts to establish Springfield on land that scouts had vetted the previous year. They considered it the most advantageous land in the Connecticut River Valley for farming and trading. This settlement, on fertile farmland just north of the Connecticut River's first major falls (at Enfield Falls), the place where seagoing vessels necessarily had to transfer their cargo into smaller shallops to continue northward on the Connecticut River, quickly became a successful settlement — largely due to its advantageous position on the Bay Path to Boston, the Massachusetts Path to Albany, and beside the Connecticut River. Originally, Springfield spanned both sides of the Connecticut River; the region was eventually partitioned. The land on the western bank of the Connecticut River became West Springfield, Massachusetts. West Springfield's northernmost parish (alternately called Third Parish, North Parish, or Ireland Parish) became Holyoke, named after earlier Springfield settler William Pynchon's son-in-law, Elizur Holyoke, who had first explored the area in the 1650s. The village of Holyoke was first settled in 1745 and was officially incorporated in 1850.

Holyoke station

Holyoke is an Amtrak intercity train station near the corner of Main and Dwight streets in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The station, which opened on August 27, 2015, was originally scheduled to open in late December 2014 when Amtrak's Vermonter service was re-routed to the Conn River Line through the Pioneer Valley.

The first railroad station in Holyoke had opened in 1845, followed by the H.H. Richardson-designed Connecticut River Railroad Station in 1885. Though passenger service to Holyoke ended in 1966, the 1885 depot is still extant. The opening of the new station returned passenger rail service to Holyoke for the first time in 49 years, and to the Dwight and Main streets site for the first time in 130 years.

History

The Connecticut River Railroad opened to passenger service between Springfield and Northampton in late 1845; trains reached Deerfield in August 1846, Greenfield in December 1847, and the junction with the Central Vermont Railway in January 1849. When the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad reached Brattleboro in 1850, the Connecticut River Railroad began running through service from Springfield to Brattleboro. Over the next century, the line was host to a mix of local and long-distance passenger and freight service. It became part of the route for numerous New York-Montreal trains as early as the 1860s, and was acquired by the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1893.

Holyoke (disambiguation)

Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.

Holyoke may also refer to:

See also