Built in 1933 in the Art Deco architecture. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1986. 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 US Post Office - Holyoke Main is a historic post office building at 650 Dwight Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. It opened in 1935, as a replacement for an earlier post office location at 31 Main Street, and is a distinctive local example of Art Deco architecture.”
Wikipedia article United States Post Office-Holyoke Main, CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 123 National Register listings in Hampden County · listed in 1986 · category: Building · built in 1933, Art Deco architecture, by George P. B. Alderman.
National Register reference number.86000122- 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 322 fires within 5 miles of US Post Office--Holyoke Main 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
124
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
120
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 US Post Office--Holyoke Main between 1831 and
1975: 1,123 Plantae, 702 Animalia, 377 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 US Post Office--Holyoke Main: 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.
Named in the fire insurance atlases
Sanborn surveyors printed an index of the
town's establishments at the front of each atlas. This property is named in
one, read straight off the scanned sheet.
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 Main Post Office in Holyoke, Massachusetts is located on the northern edge of the Central Business District of Holyoke in the heart of a diverse blend of activities. Commercial ventures such as banks, department stores, funeral homes, a theater, and an auto dealership are in the immediate vicinity along with a church, a school, and a number of apartment buildings. Most are three and four story structures. Apartment buildings were once located where the Post Office stands today. 10. At the time of its' construction in July of 1933, it was considered a "modernistic" building. It occupies approximately 20,500 square feet of the one acre lot. The central portion of the building is two stories in height with one story wings on either side.
The exterior facade is limestone with five windows, the middle three being two stories in height. This large limestone edifice has two entrances located at opposite ends of the two story main section of the Post Office. The original bronze frame and transom is complimented by the new bronze colored aluminum and glass doors. Framing each set of doors is a simple yet dominating pediment. Also above the transom of each entrance is a carved panel depicting an eagle with wings spread. Between the two entrances are three sections of an "industrial type" metal frame and glass windows. The windows start at approximately writing table height in the lobby and continue through to offices on the second floor. ( At the second floor level is an opaque spandrel panel.
The windows are set in a recess which step back five times at the jambs and once at the head and sill.
/ARCHITECT Began Constr. Nov. 1933 and Completed 1934 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Tremaglio Brothers, Builders George P.B. Alderman & Co. of Holyoke and Thomas M. James & Co. of Boston, MA The Main Post Office on Dwight Street in Holyoke, Massachusetts is a fine example fo Art Deco style of Architecture. Considered a modernistic building of its time, the Holyoke Post Office was styled after the Art Deco Folger-Shakespeare library in Washington, D.C., then one of the new prize winning showplaces of the capitol. The building was designed to be dependent on simple architectural effect rather than on cornices, columns, and lavish ornamentation. Such an effect is produced through the use of proportion, stone jointing, slight breaks, and shallow reveals.
The use of lines and uncomplicated carvings gives one a sense of appreciation of puristic design. Given its immense size, it would be very easy to become overwhelmed with an abundance of complex and inappropriate detail. From its initial conception, the building has been recognized and appreciated by the general public of Holyoke. When construction funding appeared to be a limiting factor, the architects, George P.B. Alderman and Company of Holyoke and Thomas M. James and Company of Boston, proposed that the rear be constructed of brick rather than limestone; a savings of $4,000.00. This sparked a large outery that swept the front and editorial pages of local newspapers.
Apppeals of "the New England tradition of building a house four-square" and committees dedicated to the beautification of Holyoke's buildings besieged Mayor Henry J. Toepfert's office. Fortunately a low bid from the Tremaglio Brothers Contracting Company of Waterbury, Connecticut ensured the four-sided limestone construction. The site location was also a controversial issue on the local and national scene.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 86000122, 17 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.
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