The History of Holyoke’s Dam

In 1846, Mr. George Ewing visited the Holyoke area and was inspired by the landscape and river. He noticed that the bend in the river surrounded by a broad plain, and the 57-foot falls all added up to a great opportunity. He had an idea to build a dam that few water into a series of canals that could provide power for industrial work in the factories. By 1847, construction on a wooden dam by the Hadley Falls Company began. This first dam was built with the help of hundreds of immigrants and took less than a year to finish. Sadly, on November 16, 1848 at 10:00AM when the gates of the dam were closed for the first time, the reservoir behind it began to rise and leaks in the dam formed. By 3:26PM of that same day, the dam was swept away. The company was not discouraged by this and immediately started construction of a new wooden dam, followed by a stone dam. By January 1900, the final stone dam was completed. At that time, it was the longest dam in the world, at 1000 feet. For the next 30 years, the dam and canals helped Holyoke gain its reputation as the “Paper Capital of the World.”