Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., son of Frederick Law Olmstead, the father of American landscape design, played an important part as advisor in the early development of Holyoke’s parks.

In 1870 the Library was originally located in a room in the old Appleton Street School; in 1876 it moved to the main floor of City Hall; and in 1902 it officially opened at its current location on Maple Street.

In 1946, HCC was established as Holyoke Junior College with a total enrollment of 97 in three academic areas. Dr. George Frost was the founding father of this city-sponsored institution.

The Roger Smith, "a first class modern fireproof hotel" at the corner of Maple and Suffolk Sts. was built in 1913 with an estimated cost of $400,000.

The corner of Hampden and Northampton Streets was home to the Congregational Cemetery - it was closed in 1884 with its "guests" re-interred at Forestdale Cemetery.

The top 5 Manufacturing/Businesses in Holyoke in 1913 were: 1. Paper (23); 2. Bakery/Bake Goods (18); 3. Foundry/Machine Shops (15); 4. Tobacco shops (13); and 5. Stationery Goods (9).

The first Holyoke St. Patrick's Day Road Race was in 1976 with 93 runners. In 2012, 6,005 finished the race.

The Holyoke Merry-Go-Round was built between 1927 and 1929. It was constructed by The Philadelphia Tobbogan Company in Germantown, Pennsylvania, for Holyoke's Mountain Park amusement park.

Smiths Ferry used to be a section of Northampton and annexed by Holyoke in 1909.

The chandelier hanging in the Yankee Pedlar Opera House is from the former New York Metropolitan Opera House, which was torn down in 1963.