Highlands, Holyoke, Massachusetts

The Sexual Minorities Archives is one of the longest continually operating archives of LGBT material in the United States, which holds the Leslie Feinberg Library, a collection of the late writer's personal research materials. The physical archive is located in a large converted Victorian home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as of 2017. It was located in the home of curator Ben Power in Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1979 to 2017. It was founded in Chicago in 1974 by a lesbian-feminist organization known as the New Alexandria Lesbian Library.

Highland Park is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the northwest of the city center, approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from downtown, on the banks of the Connecticut River. The neighborhood features Jones Park, originally itself known as Highland Park, which was designed by the influential Olmsted Brothers firm. The residential neighborhood was initially developed as a streetcar suburb by the Highland Park Improvement Association, which underwent several iterations between 1893 and 1930. Today the neighborhood contains numerous Victorian and early 20th century housing and about 219 acres (89 ha) of residential zoning, as well as the Edward Nelson White School.

Forestdale Cemetery is a public secular cemetery located in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The cemetery was officially organized on November 1, 1860, after a town meeting in October of that year designated a sum of $1,500 (approx. $41,000 2016 USD) for the purchase of land; contributions for this land came from the Holyoke Water Power Company as well as local mills, with the acquisitions presided over by Jones S. Davis, engineer of Lyman Mills. The cemetery acquisitions were completed and dedicated on June 22, 1862 with speeches by Amherst professor J.G. Voss and one of Holyoke's founding figures, George C. Ewing. The cemetery, built during a time of great interest in landscape architecture, contains a deliberately chosen layout of ornamental trees and shrubs.In addition to the many founding families of Holyoke, the cemetery is the resting place of many of the city's mayors and city officials, including William Whiting II and Roswell P. Crafts. Serving as a common burial ground for all citizens, it also contains a potter's field for indigents.

Log Pond Cove, previously known as Money Hole, is a former log pond and scenic wayside on the Connecticut River, about half a mile upstream from the Holyoke Dam at South Hadley Falls. The 18.5-acre (75,000 m2) pond was once used for ice cutting, as well as log drives from points north, diverted there in the late 19th and early 20th century. The log boom once set up there supplied contractors and the paper mills of Holyoke's industrial economy. After the last of these logging drives in 1915, silt gradually began to fill in the cove, gradually changing its river island border into a peninsula. By the mid-20th century the water body and its immediate surroundings had been acquired by the Holyoke Water Power Company, and in 1987 the site was briefly considered for use as the site of a children's nature camp. In 1998 it was recorded as the first body of water in the Connecticut River watershed to become infested with water chestnut, an invasive species that, despite efforts by Federal and local authorities, has persisted since that time. The area was acquired by Holyoke Gas & Electric as part of the dam and canal network on December 14, 2001, and is presently managed in part by US Fish and Wildlife Service staff and volunteers as an extension of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. Today the cove is surrounded by 62 acres of undeveloped wetlands and functions as a sanctuary to many bird species, including great blue herons and several duck species.

The Walter Scott Memorial Tower, often referred to as Scott Tower, is a stone tower built in 1940 in Holyoke, Massachusetts, United States. The tower was constructed in Anniversary Hill Park and was named after the original owner and donor of the land Colonel Walter Scott. Improvements in the 1940s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration allowed for access via trails and footbridges, but since the 2000s the tower has been subject to graffiti and vandalism. Further improvements in 2023 were slated to allow for wheelchair access to the tower.

Oakdale is a neighborhood in Holyoke, Massachusetts located to the west of the city center, adjacent to downtown. Developed as a streetcar suburb in the late nineteenth century, today the neighborhood contains many Victorian houses, and about 460 acres (190 ha) of mixed residential and commercial zoning, as well as Forestdale Cemetery, Saint Jerome Cemetery, Rohan Park, and Holyoke Medical Center.

The South Hadley Canal was a canal along the Connecticut River in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the earliest navigable canal in the United States, with operation commencing in 1795. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the South Hadley Canal Historic District. The canal dates to February 1792, when leading citizens of western Massachusetts proposed to build a canal around the Great Falls at South Hadley, a 53-foot (16 m) drop in the Connecticut River that blocked boat transport. At that time, all cargo needed to be unloaded for 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of land transport around the falls, driving river transport cost for a bushel of wheat from Northampton, Massachusetts to Windsor, Connecticut to more than double its transport costs by sea from Hartford to Boston. John Hancock, then Governor of Massachusetts, signed the charter which incorporated the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on the Connecticut River. Their corporate seal bore the motto "SIC TRANSIT - Public & Private Good". Funds were raised both locally and internationally, with four Dutch investment houses owning slightly over 50% of the stock. The canal was built by some 240 local workers. In April 1795 it opened to commercial traffic. (Nearby Turners Falls Canal opened three years later.) First year revenue came to $3,109 at 75 cents per ton. By 1816 tolls had grown to over $16,000. In 1826 the Barnet, the first steamboat to operate on the Connecticut River, passed through the South Hadley Canal on its way to Vermont. However, by 1843 competing railroads had begun to erode income, and the canal closed as uneconomical in 1862. Rather than use locks, the canal was built with an unusual "inclined plane" to transport 20-foot (6.1 m) by 60-foot (18 m) flatboats over the falls. The inclined plane appears to have been pioneered on England's Ketley Canal in 1788. This was its first use in American canals, and served as a pattern for others including the Morris Canal in New Jersey. On the South Hadley Canal's inclined plane, the boat was first maneuvered into a special cart, then hauled up or down a ramp built of solid stone, 275 feet (84 m) long by 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, covered with strong wood planks, and having a slope of 13.5 degrees. Lifting power was supplied by two overshot waterwheels 16 feet (4.9 m) in diameter, one on each side of the inclined plane, connected to the cart with chains. The cart had unequal wheel sizes to keep the boat level during transport. Total transport time was about 15 minutes. In 1805, after about 10 years of use, however, the inclined plane was replaced by a series of five locks when it was necessary to deepen the canal. Today The Bicentennial Canal Park serves as a historic memorial, preserving the historical remnants of the canal. The overlook deck provides vistas of the Mount Tom Range and the Connecticut River. Holyoke Gas & Electric maintains Texon Park, Lower Riverside Park, and Gatehouse Park along the Holyoke dam. Lower Riverside Park overlooks the site of the former inclined plane and lock system, remnants of which are still visible today.

Wistariahurst is a historic house museum and the former estate of the Skinner family, located at 238 Cabot Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It was built in 1868 for William Skinner, the owner of a successful silk spinning and textile business, and is named for the abundant wisteria vines which cascade across its eastern facade. Originally constructed in Williamsburg in 1868, the mansion designed by Northampton architect William Ferro Pratt was moved to Holyoke in 1874, following the devastating flood which swept away the original Skinner mills. Following the death of Belle Skinner, its music room was operated as a private museum from 1930 to 1959, housing the Belle Skinner Collection of Old Musical Instruments, before their donation by the family to Yale University. Since 1959 it has been operated as the Wistariahurst Museum, and is open to the public. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The Joseph Allen Skinner Museum is a cabinet of curiosities collected by silk magnate Joseph Skinner throughout his life. The collection is housed in the former First Congregational Church of Prescott, Massachusetts, which was built in 1846 and moved to South Hadley by Skinner in 1930 during the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir. Skinner, a benefactor of the college, deeded the entire collection to Mount Holyoke College following his death in 1946. Today the museum is maintained by the college's art museum. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the museum has been closed indefinitely.

The Joseph E. Muller Bridge is a crossing of the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts, connecting the communities of Holyoke and South Hadley. The bridge carries U.S. Route 202 (US 202).

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 the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,238. Located 8 miles (13 km) north of Springfield, Holyoke is part of the Springfield Metropolitan Area, one of the two distinct metropolitan areas in Massachusetts. Holyoke is among the early planned industrial cities in the United States. Built in tandem with the Holyoke Dam to utilize the water power of Hadley Falls, it is one of a handful of cities in New England built on the grid plan. During the late 19th century the city produced an estimated 80% of the writing paper used in the United States and was home to the largest paper mill architectural firm in the country, as well as the largest paper, silk, and alpaca wool mills in the world. Although a considerably smaller number of businesses in Holyoke work in the paper industry today, it is still commonly referred to as "The Paper City". Today the city contains a number of specialty manufacturing companies, as well as the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, an intercollegiate research facility which opened in 2012. Holyoke is also home to the Volleyball Hall of Fame and known as the "Birthplace of Volleyball", as the internationally played Olympic sport was invented and first played at the local YMCA chapter by William G. Morgan in 1895.While managing the Holyoke Testing Flume in the 1880s, hydraulic engineer Clemens Herschel invented the Venturi meter to determine the water use of individual mills in the Holyoke Canal System. This device, the first accurate means of measuring large-scale flows, is widely used in a number of engineering applications today, including waterworks and carburators, as well as aviation instrumentation. Powered by these municipally owned canals, Holyoke has among the lowest energy rates in the Commonwealth, and as of 2016 between 85% and 90% of the city's energy was carbon neutral, with administrative goals in place to reach 100% in the future.

The Essex Street Historic District is a residential historic district in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It runs along Essex Street between Chestnut and Pine Streets, with additional properties on the adjacent side streets. It contains a diversity of housing representative of styles covering a century of development in the area. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.