1910s

252-256 Maple Street, Holyoke, Mass

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The townhouses at 252-256 Maple Street, near the corner of Suffolk Street in Holyoke, around 1910-1915. Image from Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts.

The scene in 2017:

These three brick townhouses were built sometime in the late 19th century, and were among the many similar homes that once lined this section of Maple Street. By the early 20th century, all three were owned by Charles and Alice Alger, who lived in the house furthest to the right at 256 Maple Street. The other two houses were rented to tenants, with the 1910 census showing two different families living in each one. These included his son Floyd, who lived at 254 Maple Street with his wife Annie and their young daughter Alberta.

Charles R. Alger was an undertaker, and had his office here at his house. Floyd also worked for him, and would eventually take over the business after Charles’s death in 1927. The first photo was taken sometime in the early 1910s, and was published in Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts, which provides the following description:

There are many institutions of which the citizens of Holyoke are justly proud. There is none, however, that has attracted more attention from the profession and about which there has been more favorable comment than the one mentioned above. It has been established here for the past fifteen years and at present caters to an active and influential patronage. The proprietor, Mr. Alger is an accomplished embalmer, having had an active experience in this work of thirty-one years, and he has two competent assistants. He has a chapel which is perfectly appointed in every way and spacious enough to accommodate a large assemblage, and many funerals are held here instead of in the homes. Back of this is the show room, in which is carried a most complete stock of women’s and men’s suits, winding wrappers and caskets of the latest designs. Interments are made in any desired cemetery and out-of-town funerals are taken in charge.

The Alger family remained here until the early 1920s, when they opened a funeral home a few blocks away at 167 Chestnut Street. These three houses on Maple Street may have been demolished soon after, because, according to the city assessor’s records, the current building was constructed on the site around 1930. Today, nearly all of the 19th century townhouses on this section of Maple Street are long gone, with most having been replaced by larger apartment buildings or by vacant lots. The only surviving feature from the first photo is the tall building on the far right, which was built in 1907 and still stands at the corner of Maple and Suffolk Streets.

Hotel Monat, Holyoke, Mass

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The Hotel Monat, at the corner of Main and Mosher Streets in Holyoke, around 1910-1915. Image from Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts.

The scene in 2017:

This hotel was originally built in the mid-1880s as the Norris House. It was much smaller at the time, with only eight rooms, but the building was either significantly expanded or completely rebuilt around the turn of the 20th century, and by the time the first photo was taken it had 46 rooms. In 1906, the hotel was purchased by Henry Monat, a French-Canadian immigrant who renamed it the Hotel Monat.

It occupied a convenient location directly across the tracks from the railroad station, which is seen in the present-day view. The hotel was evidently used by both short-term guests and long-term residents, with the 1910 census showing 21 boarders living in the hotel along with Henry Monat himself. Nearly all of them were either single or widowed, and all but three were men. At least three of the residents worked in the nearby paper mills, three more worked in a livery stable, and other occupations included a waiter, a baker, and a policeman.

The first photo was taken sometime around 1910-1915, and was published in the book Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke, Massachusetts, which provides the following description of the hotel:

In a city like Holyoke, visitors look for the highest degree of comfort in their hotel accommodations and there is no place in the city where the traveller is made to feel more at home than at the Hotel Monat, of which Henry N. Monat is the genial proprietor. It is a house of moderate size and is equipped with a large proportion of the modern conveniences. there are forty-six rooms all open to daylight and sunshine, the hotel being nicely located on a corner. These rooms are all well heated and ventilated and furnished in a comfortable and homelike manner. The house is conducted on both the European and American plan and at popular rates. There is also a cafe connected with the hotel where the finest brands of liquid refreshments are served at all times. With its fine location and its modern equipment, the service is up-to-date and efficient in every respect.

The Hotel Monat building stood here throughout much of the 20th century, but it was ultimately destroyed by a fire in 1978. Today, its site is one of many empty building lots along this section of Main Street, and the property is used only as parking for the adjacent Holyoke Gas & Electric building. In the background, the Henry H. Richardson-designed railroad station is still standing, although it has been vacant for many years and its future is uncertain.

Valley Paper Company, Holyoke, Mass (2)

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The Valley Paper Company, seen from the bridge over the Second Level Canal in Holyoke, around 1910-1915. Image from Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts.

The scene in 2017:

This view shows the same building as the photos in the previous post, just from a different angle. As mentioned in that post, the Valley Paper Company was established in the 1860s, and was one of the many paper mills that were located in Holyoke during the 19th century. The original mill building, completed in 1864, was much smaller, and apparently consisted of just the three-story section to the left of the tower. However, as production increased, so did the size of the building, and it was expanded in 1877, with an addition that evidently included the tower and the section to the right of it. The two sides of the building have very similar architecture, and at first glance they appear to be symmetrical, but the right side is actually longer and has a slightly different shade of brick when compared to the right side.

The Valley Paper Company remained in business for many years, but it eventually suffered the same fate as most of Holyoke’s other once-prosperous industries. It closed during the second half of the 20th century, and in 1981 the property was acquired by the city. The rear sections of the mill, not visible in this scene, were then demolished, but the front of the building was preserved and renovated, and it is one of the many historic factories that still line Holyoke’s canals. It still bears the name of the Valley Paper Company, which is written in slate on the left side of the roof and painted on the wall on the right side of the building, but it now houses several different tenants. These include West Mass Elder Care, whose green sign is visible on the central tower.

Dwight Street from Main Street, Holyoke, Mass

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Looking west on Dwight Street from the corner of Main Street in Holyoke, around 1910-1915. Image from Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts.

The scene in 2017:

This scene shows a view similar to the one in an earlier post, but these photos were taken a little further back, showing the entire block of Dwight Street between Main and Race Streets. The first photo here, taken around the early 1910s, shows a busy Dwight Street, with a mix of trolleys, automobiles, and what appears to be a blurry horse-drawn carriage. On the right side of the photo is the Hotel Hamilton, which was built in 1850 and expanded and renovated in 1889-1890. Among its ground-floor tenants at the time was the Mechanics Savings Bank, which occupied the storefront on the far right side, at the corner of Dwight and Main Streets. Another bank, the Hadley Falls National Bank, was located directly across the street, in the building on the far left side of the first photo.

Another important building in the first photo was Parsons Hall, the third building from the left side of the photo. Also known as the Chapin Block, it was apparently built around the early 1850s, about the same time as the hotel across the street. Its large third floor, which took up about half the building’s height, housed an auditorium that was used for a variety of events throughout the 19th century. Several local churches, including the Unitarian Church and the French Congregational Church, temporarily worshiped here before constructing buildings of their own, and high school graduations were also held here for many years. The actress Eva Tanguay, a French-Canadian immigrant to Holyoke, made her stage debut here as a young girl in the 1880s, before going on to have a successful career as one of the most famous vaudeville performers in the country.

Further up the street, the first photo shows several of Holyoke’s factory buildings. On the left, just beyond Parsons Hall on the other side of the Second Level Canal, was the mill of the Beebe & Holbrook Paper Company. It was built in the early 1870s as the Hampden Paper Company, but later became Beebe & Holbrook in 1878. Then, in 1899, it became a division of the American Writing Paper Company. This trust included many of Holyoke’s paper mills, and controlled a significant portion of the nation’s writing paper supply. However, other Holyoke mills remained independent, including the Whiting Paper Company, whose mill is visible on the other side of Dwight Street, just beyond the Hotel Hamilton. Further in the distance, hidden from view in the first photo, was the William Skinner & Sons silk mill, and at the top of the hill was Holyoke City Hall, with its tower rising above the factories.

Today, there are still some identifiable buildings from the first photo, but most have undergone significant changes. Some of the Beebe & Holbrook buildings are still standing, but the one that is most visible in the first photo is gone. Similarly, several of the former Whiting buildings are also still there, but not the one shown in the first photo. Closer to the foreground, the Hotel Hamilton building now stands vacant. It was dramatically altered after the hotel closed in the early 1940s, including the removal of most of the fourth floor. Most of the storefronts have also been altered, except for the former Mechanics Savings Bank on the far right side, which still retains its early 20th century appearance.

On the other side of the street, Parsons Hall similarly lost its upper floor during the mid-20th century, and much of its Dwight Street facade was also rebuilt. However, the rest of the building is still standing in its heavily-altered appearance. Its neighbors to the left are gone, though, including the former Hadley Falls National Bank building and the site is now an empty lot at the corner of Main Street. Overall, the only building that has survived from the first photo without any significant changes is city hall itself, which still stands in the distance at the corner of Dwight and High Streets, and remains in use as the seat of the municipal government.

Holyoke High School, Holyoke, Mass

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Holyoke High School, seen from the corner of Hampshire and Pine Streets in Holyoke, around 1910-1915. Image from Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts.

The scene in 2017:

Holyoke High School was established in 1852, and occupied several different buildings before moving into its first purpose-built high school building a decade later. It was located on Elm Street, between Dwight and Suffolk Streets, and it was used as the high school until 1898. However, the city’s population had seen considerable growth during that time, from around 5,000 in 1860 to over 45,000 by the turn of the century, and there was a need for a much larger school building.

As a result, the new high school was completed in 1898, on the outskirts of downtown Holyoke. It was designed by architect George P. B. Alderman, and featured a Classical Revival design with a stone exterior on the first floor and yellow brick on the upper floors. The school grounds occupied an entire city block, surrounded by Pine, Hampshire, Beech, and Sargeant Streets, and the first photo shows the view facing the eastern corner of the building, as seen from the corner of Pine and Hampshire Streets.

This building was used as Holyoke High School until 1964, when the current high school opened a few blocks away on Beech Street. The old school was then renovated and reopened as the home of Holyoke Community College. The college, which had been founded in 1946, had over 1,500 students by the 1967-1968 school year, but its time in this building proved short-lived. On January 4, 1968, a fire started in the attic and quickly spread throughout the building. Around 500 people were inside at the time, but all managed to escape safely. However, the fire burned for hours, completely gutting the building and leaving only the partially-collapsed stone and brick exterior walls.

Following the fire, Holyoke Community College had a somewhat nomadic existence until 1974, when it moved into its present-day campus off of Homestead Avenue, on the western side of the city. Today, the only visible remnant from the first photo is, ironically, the fire hydrant in the foreground at the corner. Although it is not the same hydrant in both photos, it is located on the same spot, and serves as a way to orient the first photo. The former site of the school is still owned by the city, though, and it is now occupied by the Holyoke Senior Center, which is visible in the distance on the left side of the photo.

Holyoke Public Library, Holyoke, Mass

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The Holyoke Public Library, seen from the corner of Maple and Essex Streets in Holyoke, around 1910-1915. Image from Illustrated & Descriptive Holyoke Massachusetts.

The library in 2017:

The Holyoke Public Library was established in 1870, and originally consisted of around 1,200 books that were housed in the Appleton Street School. Then, in 1876, the library moved to a room in city hall, where it was located for the next 25 years. However, in 1897 the Holyoke Water Power Company offered this lot, bounded by Maple, Cabot, Chestnut, and Essex Streets, to the library. The only stipulation was that the library must, within three years, raise enough money to construct a building on the site. This goal was ultimately achieved, thanks in part to the contributions of some of Holyoke’s prominent industrialists, including silk manufacturer William Skinner and paper manufacturer and former Congressman William Whiting, who each gave $10,000. Another $10,000 came from the prominent financier J. P. Morgan, whose ancestors had once lived in Holyoke.

The building was designed by noted local architect James A. Clough, who provided the plans free of charge. The exterior was built of limestone, and included classically-inspired elements such as a columned portico, which gave the building the appearance of a Greek temple in the midst of a modern industrial city. It was completed in 1902, and Whiting, who had served as the library’s president since 1870, gave the dedication address. At the time, the the library’s collections had grown to more than 20,000 volumes, and the building featured space for periodicals, reference works, and a children’s department. Within a decade, it would also house a natural history museum, which was later moved to the Wistariahurst museum.

The first photo shows the library as it appeared around the early 1910s. Since then, it has continued to serve as the city’s library for more than a century, although it has recently undergone significant changes. Between 2011 and 2013, it was renovated and expanded, with a large addition to the rear on the Chestnut Street side of the building. This project involved demolishing the old wing that housed the library stacks, and replacing it with a modern steel and glass structure that sharply contrasts with the original architecture of the building. However, the rest of the building was preserved as part of the renovations, and very little has changed from this view, aside from a small portion of the addition that is visible on the far right.