Montague Center Historic District

Montague is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 8,580 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts metropolitan statistical area. The villages of Montague Center, Montague City, Lake Pleasant, Millers Falls, and Turners Falls are located in the town of Montague; Turners Falls, comprising over half the population of the town and its main business district, is sometimes used as a metonym for the entire town of Montague.

The Bookmill (sometimes Book Mill) is an independent bookstore in Montague, Massachusetts. The 1834 grist mill it occupies is listed as the Alvah Stone Mill on the National Register of Historic Places. The store's motto is "Books you don't need in a place you can't find," and it claims to have "40,000 books and one waterfall." Housed in a 19th-century former gristmill, The Boston Globe called it "a magnet for bibliophiles from the nearby Amherst-Northampton Five College area". In 2005, the Globe devoted an entire article to the bookstore, quoting the owner as saying, "We're not particularly convenient, we're not particularly efficient, but we're beautiful."The New York Times has described The Bookmill as "the valley's most pristine ambiance for just plain readers" and praised "the Book Mill's cafe, where the baked offerings are superior, as is the view of the rushing waters and the evergreens on the opposite bank, sharply edged against the snow."Comedian John Hodgman frequents the Bookmill. In a 2013 interview Hodgman claimed "...most dear to my heart The Book Mill and Lady Killigrew in Montague. That’s a used bookstore and great cafe where I would spend every hour of every day even if they didn’t have Wi-Fi, and they do."

Lake Pleasant is a village in Montague, Massachusetts, United States. It is also the site of an early and prominent American Spiritualist campground. It claims to be the oldest continuously-existing Spiritualist community in the United States. Lake Pleasant was founded in 1870 as a "campmeeting grounds" with 75 tent lots, and by 1872 was popular with Spiritualists for summer tenting. In 1874 the New England Spiritualist Campmeeting Association (NESCA) was organized by Henry Buddington and Joseph Beals, and in 1879 formally incorporated. The village rapidly expanded to 90 small cottages, and 50 acres (200,000 m2) around the lake were divided into many more camping lots. At its peak, circa 1900, Lake Pleasant contained 196 homes and cottages, swelling in August to as many as 2,000 residents. Lake Pleasant was one of a couple dozen Spiritualist camp meetings in the Northeast during this time, including Onset Bay, Grove in Wareham, Massachusetts, Queen City Park in Burlington, Vermont, and Lily Dale, outside Jamestown, New York. Emma Hardinge Britten, one of the many invited speakers at Lake Pleasant, painted this portrait of the community in 1880: Its attractions are manifold — embracing every variety of inland scenery — everything possible for the comfort and convenience of visitors, and ample facilities for amusement and recreation. The lake is a beautiful sheet of about one hundred and eight acres, and is within a mile of another lake of sixty acres. Bath houses are located at convenient points on the shore, a commodious wharf lies near the foot of the stairs leading to the grove from the railroad station, and a flotilla of boats is always in readiness to take out pleasure or fishing parties. An elegant Pavilion stands on an elevated plateau overlooking the grove on the one side, and the railroad station on the other, accessible from each by easy flights of stairs. . . . From the first peep of day, the campers are astir, lighting gipsy fires, preparing breakfast, and trading with the various hawkers who ply with their provisions regularly through the white-tented streets. After the morning meal, visits are exchanged, and the business of the day proceeds with as much energy and order as in the cities. Sailing parties, séances, amusements, and business, all proceed in due course, until the hour for speaking arrives, when thousands assemble at the speaker’s stand, to partake of the solid intellectual refreshment of the day. Lectures, balls, parties, illuminations, public discussions, &c., &c., fill up the time until midnight, when the white tents enclose the slumbering hosts; the fires and lamps are extinguished, and the pale moonbeam shines over rocks, groves, and lakes, illumining scenes as strange and picturesque as ever the eye of mortal gazed upon. . . . Bookstalls abound, photographs of spirits and mortals are on sale, and literature is rapidly changing hands. Healing, trance, test, and physical Mediums, put out their signs, and ply their professional avocations as industriously here as at home. Lake Pleasant's decline began in 1907 with a fire that destroyed 130 homes, and its fate was sealed when the lake itself became a public water supply off limits to recreation. As property values fell, many buildings were acquired by the water department for demolition. From 1913 to 1976, Lake Pleasant was home to two competing Spiritualist organizations, each with its own temple and followers, namely the original NESCA, affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, and The National Spiritual Alliance established in 1913. The two groups differed on questions of reincarnation. The NECSA temple burned down in 1955, and NECSA itself disbanded in 1976.

The Springfield Terminal railroad bridge in Deerfield, Massachusetts, is a three-span deck-truss bridge which crosses the Connecticut River.

The Montague Nuclear Power Plant was a proposed nuclear power plant to be located in Montague, Massachusetts. The plant was to consist of two 1150 MWe General Electric boiling water reactors. The project was proposed in 1973 and canceled in 1980, after $29 million was spent on the project.On 22 February 1974, George Washington's Birthday, organic farmer Sam Lovejoy took a crowbar to the weather-monitoring tower which had been erected at the site on the Montague Plains. Lovejoy felled 349 feet of the 550-foot tower and then took himself to the local police station, where he presented a statement in which he took full responsibility for the action. Lovejoy went on trial in September 1974 on charges of malicious destruction, but was acquitted on a technicality. Lovejoy's action galvanized local public opinion against the plant which ended the project entirely.In 1975, Green Mountain Post Films made Lovejoy's Nuclear War which told the story of the tower toppling and subsequent trial. The documentary film was instrumental in organizing the anti-nuclear movement. Lovejoy, and other members of the Montague Farm commune such as Anna Gyorgy and Harvey Wasserman, helped to form the Clamshell Alliance anti-nuclear group. In 1977, the Clamshell Alliance was involved in a series of mass protests against the proposed Seabrook, NH twin nuclear plants. The series of protests occupying the proposed site of the Seabrook nuclear power reactor in New Hampshire resulted in over 1,400 arrests, garnered national publicity and inspired nuclear opposition groups in other parts of the United States.Green Mountain Post Films, composed of producers Dan Keller and Charles Light (also Montague Farm commune members, went on to make The Last Resort, Early Warnings, Save the Planet, Training for Nonviolence and other films that helped organize a national anti-nuclear movement. Lovejoy went on to become President of Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) which organized five nights of benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in 1979, featuring artist such as Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Crosby, Stills and Nash and a host of other music stars. MUSE also staged a 250,000 person rally on what later became Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. A total of 63 nuclear units were canceled in the USA between 1975 and 1980. Many nuclear plant proposals were no longer viable due to the downturn of electricity demand increases, significant cost and time overruns, and more complex regulatory requirements. Also, there was considerable public opposition to nuclear power in the US by this time.

Mount Toby, 1,269 feet (387 m), is the highest summit of a sprawling collection of mostly wooded hills and knolls that rise from a distinct plateau-like upland in the towns of Sunderland and Leverett, Massachusetts, just east of the Connecticut River. This mountain mass, part of the Metacomet Ridge geology, is oval shaped and roughly three miles by two miles wide. Although three of the subordinate peaks have names of their own (Roaring Mountain, Ox Hill, Bull Hill), none of them are noteworthy on their own, and the designation “Mount Toby” is most often used (locally and formally) to describe the entire geologic mass. This article, therefore, describes the entire Mount Toby upland. Mount Toby is notable for its high biodiversity, attractive woodlands, waterfalls, and its glacial kettle ponds (most notably Cranberry Pond). Although the summit is wooded, there is a fire tower, open to the public, which provides 360-degree views of Amherst and the Holyoke Range in the south; the Connecticut River and Mount Sugarloaf to the west; Mount Snow, Mount Ascutney, and Mount Monadnock in the north; and the nearby Peace Pagoda in Leverett to the east. Additionally, there are several cliffs located on the lower south and southwest facing slopes overlooking the Connecticut River Valley and the town of Sunderland.

The Robert Frost Trail is a 47-mile (76 km) long footpath that passes through the eastern Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. The trail runs from the Connecticut River in South Hadley, Massachusetts to Ruggles Pond in Wendell State Forest, through both Hampshire and Franklin County and includes a number of scenic features such as the Holyoke Range, Mount Orient, Puffer's Pond, and Mount Toby. The trail is named after the poet Robert Frost, who lived and taught in the area from 1916 to 1938.

North Leverett is a historic mill village of Leverett, Massachusetts. Centered on the intersection of North Leverett Road with Chestnut Hill Road and Cave Hill Road it includes predominantly residential buildings that were built during the height of the area's industrial activity between the 1770s and mid-19th century. The architecture is mainly Federal and Greek Revival in style, including the 1832 North Leverett Baptist Church. The Slarrow Mill is the only remaining component of the village's industrial past. The village was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.The town of Leverett was first settled in the mid-18th century, and was incorporated (by separation from Sunderland) in 1774. North Leverett was the site of an early inn (no longer standing) operated by Richard Montague, one of the first settlers. The soil in Leverett was too poor to support market-based agriculture, and the Sawmill River was seen as a good source of water power for industrial use. Joseph Slarrow, another early settler, purchased land on the river in North Leverett, and established the sawmill that still stands today. By the mid-19th century, the village was the most substantial industrial center in the entire town, producing lumber, shingles, and scythes. Industry declined in the early 20th century, and now only archaeological remains and the Slarrow mill survive as a reminder of that activity.

The New England Peace Pagoda is a peace pagoda located in Leverett, Massachusetts. It was the first Nipponzan-Myōhōji peace pagoda to be built in the United States.

The Canalside Rail Trail Bridge (also known as the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (Turners Falls Branch) Bridge) is a former New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (Turner Falls Branch) rail bridge across the Connecticut River between Deerfield and Montague, Massachusetts. The bridge (Massachusetts numbers: D06033/M28019) is on the Massachusetts Historic Bridge Inventory as a "Historic Metal Truss Bridge", currently the sixth oldest metal truss bridge on the state-wide historic registry. The Canalside Rail Trail, completed in Spring 2008, incorporates this bridge.

Deerfield River is a river that runs for 76 miles (122 km) from southern Vermont through northwestern Massachusetts to the Connecticut River. The Deerfield River was historically influential in the settlement of western Franklin County, Massachusetts, and its namesake town. It is the Connecticut River's second-longest tributary in Massachusetts, 2.1 miles (3.4 km) shorter than Metropolitan Springfield's Westfield River. The river's confluence with the Connecticut is in Greenfield, Massachusetts, downstream of Turners Falls (42.57708°N 72.57784°W / 42.57708; -72.57784). The Deerfield is one of the most heavily dammed rivers in the country with, on average, a dam almost every 7 miles (11 km) for its entire length. In Shelburne Falls, the glacial potholes and the Bridge of Flowers are popular tourist attractions around the river.

Millers Falls is a census-designated place (CDP) in the towns of Montague and Erving in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,139 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts metropolitan statistical area.