Springfield Massachusetts

State Street, Springfield, Mass

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The view looking west on State Street from Myrtle Street in Springfield, around 1913. Image from Progressive Springfield, Massachusetts (1913).

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State Street in 2015:

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The first photo shows roughly the same section of State Street as the one in this post, just taken from the opposite direction.  In the early 1900s, the elm-lined State Street was primarily residential, with a number of single-family homes on either side.  Also in the photo, on the right, is the ivy-covered facade of the First Baptist Church, which was built in the late 1880s.  The congregation merged with another Baptist church around the time the photo was taken, and the building later became St. Paul’s Universalist Church.  It was later demolished, and today there is a parking lot on the site.

By the early 1900s, the street was still unpaved, but automobiles were still fairly rare anyway.  Instead, the trolleys of the Springfield Street Railway carried much of the city’s traffic, and at least three appear to be visible here on the busy State Street corridor.  Their days were numbered, though, because within a couple decades most trolley networks around the country had been replaced with buses.  In Springfield, these buses eventually came under the control of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, and they still operate many lines along this part of State Street, as seen in the 2015 photo.

84 Temple Street, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 84 Temple Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The house in 2015:

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This Queen Anne style house was built around 1880, at about the same time as its nearly identical neighbor to the right.  One early owner of this house was W.H. Burrall, whose name appears on the 1882 city atlas.  He died before 1899, when the city atlas lists the house as belonging to his heirs, and he appears to be the same W.F. Burrall who co-owned Hawkins & Burrall, a Springfield-based bridge building company.  Along with this, his name also appears in historical records as a consulting engineer for the Boston & Albany Railroad.

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By 1900, the house was owned by Louis C. Hyde, Springfield’s postmaster.  According to the 1900 census, this house was pretty crowded; he lived here with his wife, their son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law and son-in-law, two grandchildren, and three servants, for a total of 12 people in the house.  Hyde was featured in a 1913 volume of Automobile Journal, which mentioned that he was using a Springfield-built Indian motorcycle with a tricar attachment to deliver parcel post mail around the city.  The photo to the right was printed in the magazine, and shows him on the motorcycle.

 

82 Temple Street, Springfield, Mass

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The house at 82 Temple Street, seen here around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The house in 2015:

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Compared to the first photo, this historic Queen Anne style house on Temple Street has seen better days, although it is being restored as of the July 2015 photo.  Both this house and its nearly identical neighbor to the left were built around 1880, at a time when this neighborhood was popular among upper middle class professionals such as bankers, lawyers, doctors, and businessmen.  In the early 1900s, this house was owned by Robert O. Morris, who served as the clerk of courts for many years, and was also a director of the United Electric Light Company, president of the Springfield Five Cents Savings Bank, and served in similar roles for several other area companies.  He was also an amateur ornithologist, and in 1901 he published a book, The Birds of Springfield and Vicinity.

Despite the changes in this neighborhood over the years, the 2015 photo shows that the house still retains many of its original decorative elements.  The windows are all new, the shutters have been removed, and the front porch is being completely replaced, but otherwise it still looks very similar to what it would have looked like when Robert O. Morris lived here a century ago.

25 Mattoon Street, Springfield, Mass

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The building at 25 Mattoon Street, seen around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The building in 2015:

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This building is a little different from the rest of the houses on the south side of Mattoon Street. It was built in 1891, making it the newest on that side of the street. Unlike all of the others, it was built as an apartment building, and its Romanesque architecture is very different from the rest of the street. It is also known as the Yadow Building, because of the somewhat enigmatic “Yadow” inscription in the center of the parapet, and it is part of the Quadrangle-Mattoon Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

William H. Haile House, Springfield, Mass

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The William H. Haile House at 41 Mattoon Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The houses in 2015:

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This house on Mattoon Street was one of the first to be built on Mattoon Street; it was completed in 1871, and the first owner was William H. Haile, a businessman who had just moved to Springfield from Hinsdale, New Hampshire. Haile’s father had served as governor of New Hampshire from 1857 to 1859, and the younger Haile continued the family’s political legacy.  He represented Hinsdale in the New Hampshire state legislature for three years, and after he came to Springfield he served a year as the city’s mayor, in 1881.  From 1882 to 1883, he served in the Massachusetts Senate, and from 1890 to 1892 he was the Lieutenant Governor.  He was the Republican candidate for governor in 1892, but he lost a close race to incumbent governor William E. Russell.  I don’t know long Haile lived in this house, though, because by the early 1880s he was living in a larger house a few blocks away at 49 Chestnut Street, where the D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts is located today.

35 Mattoon Street, Springfield, Mass

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The rowhouse at 35 Mattoon Street in Springfield, around 1938-1939. Image courtesy of the Springfield Preservation Trust.

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The house in 2015:

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Mattoon Street is a remarkable street in downtown Springfield, with beautifully restored Victorian rowhouses that make it seem more like Boston’s Back Bay than a neighborhood in Springfield.  This particular house is near the western end of the street, and it was built in 1872 along with its four identical neighbors to the right.  They were designed by architects E.C. Gardner and Jason Perkins, who later designed other Springfield buildings such as the Technical High School on nearby Elliot Street.  The original owners of all five houses were B.F. Farrar and Jesse F. Tapley, who sold them to individual owners after they were completed.  Today, the houses on the street, including this one, have been beautifully restored, and the neighborhood is part of the Quadrangle-Mattoon Street Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.