"Fair mountain, thou art Mt. Holyoke now!"
How much of this rhythmic legend is true and how much imaginary is uncertain; but it is quite probable that in the course of this survey Holyoke's name was given to the mountain, of which Holyoke city is a namesake.
The town so originated and named grew gradually until the breaking out of the civil war, but its most rapid growth has been since 1865. In 1857 the water-power and property were purchased by a company which organized as the Holyoke Water Power Company, and which has fostered and developed the natural advantages of the place as a manufacturing centre to a wonderful degree.
In the first twenty years of its existence the town acquired a population of about 11,000 and a valuation of nearly $10,000,000. In the sixteen years that have succeeded, the population has almost trebled and the valuation this year is nearly $16,000,000.
There is not another city in the east that can show such swift and at the same time substantial growth as Holyoke has enjoyed during the two decades succeeding the war. In a few years it became the greatest paper-making centre of the country. It has now twenty-four large paper-making corporations, one having the largest paper-mill in the world. A long established cotton mannfacturing company employs one thousand and three hundred operatives. A company manufacturing worsted goods employs one thousand persons, the two mammoth thread-mills have some one thousand names on the pay-rolls. The Unquomonk silk works, which were destroyed by the great Mill River flood of 1874 were re-located in this city, where was found a safe, reliable water-power. There are woolen factories, including a company for manufacturing imitation seal-skin goods and a large blanket mill. The manufacture of Blank books and Envelopes, Steam-pumps, Wire, Machinery, Cutlery, Screws, Fire-hydrants and Steam-boilers, Cement works, Spindles and Reeds, Fourdrinier wire and Rubber-goods are among the city's greatly diversified industries. There are extensive brickyards and stone quarries near at hand and the lumbering business is an important industry.