PRESENT AND FUTURE. The title-page foreshadowed the limited scope of this article, which included many matters of local importance, which might have interested one or another reader. If space permitted enough could be said to show that the building up of the various mills and workshops, and all the great industrial interests which center in them, has not engrossed the whole attention of the community, or crowded out of sight the due development of all those moral, social, educational and sanitary interests which are cherished in every thriving, wholesome city. Thoughtful and public-spirited citizens have not been wanting at any time in the history of Holyoke, to claim for all these things, their rightful prominence. That the more material interests have been urged forward with all the energy that capital and business sagacity could bring to bear, is evidenced by the following pages, crowded as they are, with illustrations of the busy mills and workshops which, in so short a time, have risen here. Every year in the later history of Holyoke, has witnessed a steady increase in the number of these solid and substantial structures, and even the financial crisis has not interrupted the annual contribution of incoming enterprises. Thus sure]y and steadily, manufactures, capital, population, are drawn hither year by year; thus the far reaching plans of those who made the great water-power available, and those who have since maintained and controlled it, are being gradually fulfilled. The wealth and population of Holyoke have more than doubled in the last decade, and if the future may be judged from the past, other and varied industries will continue to gather here to utilize the vast surplus of power which now flows in wasteful profusion over the great rapids, and the coming decade will equal or surpass the growth and progress of the last. | Previous Page | Contents | Next Page | | HolyokeMass.com Blog | HolyokeMass History | Hampden County | | Western Mass History & Genealogy | © Laurel O'Donnell 1997 - 2012, all rights reserved This is an adaptation of the original publication This document may be downloaded for personal non-commercial use only and cannot be reproduced or distributed without permission.