Built in 1874 in the Second Empire architecture in the United States and Canada. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1979. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Caledonia Building, also known as Caledonian Hall or The Caledonian, is a historic commercial building located at 185-193 High Street in downtown Holyoke, Massachusetts. Built in 1874, it is one of that commercial district's finest examples of Victorian architecture and a rare representative example of the development of the city's Scottish immigrant community.”
Wikipedia article Caledonia Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 123 National Register listings in Hampden County · listed in 1979 · category: Building · built in 1874, Second Empire architecture in the United States and Canada.
Architectural style. Second Empire architecture in the United States and Canada, Second Empire style
National Register reference number.79000346- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Holyoke, numbered among the leading and most prosperous manufacturing cities of New England, is situated on the Connecticut river in the western part of Massachusetts and is in close proximity to northern Connecticut. By state census of 1905 the population was 49,934, and it is estimated the census of 1910 will show 58,000 people. The city was incorporated April 7, 1873.
Holyoke owes its growth and prosperity to its excellent water power and advantageous geographical position. It has close railroad connections with Boston, Hartford, Albany and New York, and is fortunate in having in its commercial circles many business men of sagacity, energy and progressive ideas. The leading industries of the city are devoted to the manufacture of paper, blank books, cotton, thread, woolens, alpacas, blankets, wire cloth, machinery, steam pumps, bits, braces, hydrants, boilers, trolley tracks and various auxiliary products.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 320 fires within 5 miles of Caledonia Building between
2014 and 2020, burning about 188 acres in total. 28 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Equipment and vehicle use
123
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
119
Debris and open burning
29
Natural
28
Recreation and ceremony
13
Smoking
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Arson/incendiarism
2
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 2,236 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Caledonia Building between 1831 and
1975: 1,120 Plantae, 703 Animalia, 379 Fungi, 19 Chromista, 9 Unrecorded, 5 Protozoa, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. Albee, A. B. Seymour, A. C. Gibson and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
24 workings within 5 miles of Caledonia Building: 13 producers, 11 past producers.
13 still produce. What was taken out: Brick Clay, Clay, Stone, Dimension, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Holyoke, the town this property stands in, in 22 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 5 flood, 3 hail.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Four golfers were struck by lightning while standing in a shelter at the Wycoff Country Club. All were wearing cleats. Three were seriously injured and the other received minor injury. Two went into cardiac arrest. Three of the injured were recovering at local area hospitals. The lightning apparently struck a nearby tree and then jumped to the shelter.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,803 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Caledonia Building can be described as a Victorian Brownstown of the Second Empire period. Except for the first floor, where the front has been altered slightly for retail purposes, the building appears to have remained virtually unaltered throughout the years. The second and third floor windows which are capped with ornamental brownstown lintels are in good condition. The decorative brownstown columns are decaying rapidly and in need of repair if they are to remain. Many other details on the ornamental facade are also in need of repair if the building is to be preserved. The sloping Mansard roof and its slate grey tiles are in relatively good condition.
The most impressive architectural feature of the building, the protruding pavilions with their own roofs have withstood weathering better than the rest of the facade and the ornamental details have remained intact. A note must be made of the fact that although the building was constructed in 1874 by the original owner R.P. Crafts, the Caledonian insignia is believed to have been added between 1879 and 1885 when the building was purchased by the Caledonian Benefit Club. The interior of the building for the most part is in its original state. Floors and stairways are solid and the woodwork has retained much of the original qualities of workmanship.
The walls and ceilings are devoid of cracks and crumbling which can be attributed to the fact that the building was occupied and maintained up until 1968. Since that time, the upper stories have been vacant while the first floor has been occupied by small stores and a Spanish Church.
/ARCHITECT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Caledonian was constructed in1874 duringHolyoke's fastest growing and most productive era. It was one of many fine Victorian style buildings to spring up in the High Street area, which was fast becoming the City's retail commercial, business and government center. This area remains the Central Business District of the City and the Caledonia is still one of the most impressive examples of Victorian architecture in the North High Street area. Roswel1 P. Crafts built the Caledonian for business office, and commercial purposes. At this time it was not called the Caledonian, but the "Crafts Building." However R. P. Crafts'interest soon turned to politics and he was elected as the second Mayor of Holyoke in 1877 and later served in the state legislature.
It can be speculated that R.P. Crafts' new interests left little time for the real estate business, so he sold his building on High Street somewhere between 1879 and 1885 to the Caledonian Benefit Club, who occupied the third and fourth floor and rented the remaining two floors. There is a great hall and an auditorium on the fourth floor which the club used to conduct meetings and club activities. The Caledonian Benefit Club was organized November 22, 1879 with an original membership of 31. The object of the organizers was to create a permanent fund for the benefit of their fellow countrymen and women in time of sickness and distress, and for the cultivation and promotion of Scottish literature, song and poetry. Its membership grew from its original 31 to 200 in 1896 to 400 in 1912.
Although the club is no longer in existence, the Caledonian kiltie band, the oldest band of its type in the country and an offshoot of the club, still performs in parades throughout New England.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 79000346, 12 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
Block
