Location
About Holyoke
Holyoke, Massachusetts, is the first planned industrial city in the country. A dam on the Connecticut River designed to harness the waterpower of the 60-foot drop of the Hadley Falls was constructed between 1848 and 1849. A series of canals directed that power to textile and paper mills. Power, drive, and smart planning would become the city's hallmark and helped put Western Massachusetts on the map as a notable corner of industrial inventiveness and flourishing opportunities.
The ingenuity of Holyoke’s city plan and canal system, combined with the city’s excellent location on resource-rich land along the chief routes to New York and Boston, attracted America's best and brightest in business and the arts. The city, planned to accommodate a population of 200,000, grew quickly and prospered. By 1900, Holyoke had more millionaires per capita than any other city in America and was richer yet in architectural gems and fine cultural institutions.
Through the early 1970s, Holyoke remained a center of commerce and culture and is now reinventing itself for the 21st century with the same spirit, imagination, and drive of its pioneering founders.
