Canal Days

George Colton

Clark House is at 8 Park and is from 1865.

Susan Jewett House at 10 Park Street is from 1877. It is at the corner of Center Street.

Whiting Street Reservoir Dam

The dam is 1773 feet long, 21 feet high, and is made of sandstone and Rosendale grouted cement. The dam is made of 12 thousand perch of stone. It rests on bedrock but with some gravel.  The reservoir has half a billion gallons of water and covers 114 acres.  Its watershed is 1.5 square miles.

The land for the reservoir was taken in 1884. (LOCATION) The land was in Northampton but the City of Holyoke took the land from the heirs of the Whiting Street family. This family was not happy so they started a court case – Land of Whiting Street Brook v. Estate of Whiting Street. There was also an injunction against claims on Easthampton Road. All was settled in 1889. To dam a brook you also need permission and so by 1888 the Holyoke Water Works had permission from the County Commissioners for Hampshire County. Any land after that was slowly purchased by the Water Works.

In 1887 the year before the dam was started the estimated cost of the dam was 60 thousand dollars with a height of 23 feet and length of 1850 feet. The Delaney Brothers built the Whiting Street Dam.

For the most part, the waters have been kept clean. The trees were removed from the pasture that formed this reservoir but the stumps were left behind.

There was a bacteria scare on 2 May 1944 at the reservoir and the brook. Scum was found on the water. The water was tested to determine the cause but the result was inconclusive (12 May 1944). Copper sulfate was put into the water to kill the bacteria. On Jarvis Avenue there are two dumps both alongside the western edge of that road – one of those dumps was still being used (since 1939). The Roaring Brook goes by that site so membranes have been used to separate the dumps from the brook. These membrane dikes were put up in 1944 and 1945. These worked very well where other attempts had failed so much so that in 1945 the reservoir is chemically clean. Also water near the dumps was collected in drainage ditches from an area in the hills west of the damps. Then the ditches lead to the north. Constructed was 250 feet of ditch and 40 feet of 18 foot culvert. Lastly, a duck pond and a swamp along Jarvis were filled in. These improved drainage schemes helped 50 acres of the watershed of the Roaring Brook from being polluted.

Since 1907, Whiting Street Reservoir serves both a high service and a low service domain of Holyoke. It does this by the position of the pipes. It served the Highlands (from Dwight Street over to the north) as a high service and the Downtown as a low. In 1902 the dam had its one and only leak but it was quickly filled in with gravel. Starting in 1912 a new pipeline was put in leading to Smith’s Ferry. In April 1913 the reservoir finally feed water to Smith’s Ferry. This was a promise that the city had made to the neighborhood since before its annexation of Smiths Ferry. The city now provided all services to the neighborhood.

The reservoir area is beautiful and so enjoy your stay.

Fun facts:

There are dinosaur footprints on one of the last flagstones to the north on the top of the dam.

Fishing was allowed in the reservoir in 1946 and 1947. For this reason and more the reservoir was considered to be a recreational center.

Rainfall amount at Whiting Street Reservoir.

Height of the water at the dam

In 1986 a turbidity problem in the surface water hit the reservoir that forced it to close soon after (in 1989). The Holyoke Water Works would have had to filter the sand and that is expensive.

Sanborn map analysis:

Sanborn 1915 map

Sanborn 1949 map

Sanborn 1956 map

Side trip:

The Whiting Street home is down Brookwood Road.

Also the end of Roaring Brook is down that road and also appears at the edge of the Mountain Park old gate.

Thanks for going on this wonderful trek around the Whiting Street Reservoir.

Whiting Street Reservoir Control House

The control house (LOCATION) has water pipes deep underneath it.

The pipe is even lower than the roadway below you.  The view is beautiful in front of you but the important job of providing drinking water is done beneath your feet. The grass and dirt berm was added from 1929 to 1931.  It was destroyed by Hurricane Diane.  It was repaired the same way as in 1931 by draining the water and scooping out the dirt.

Whiting Street Reservoir Spillway

The is only for the overflow of water. (LOCATION)  It enters over the small dam and is channeled until it meets the water coming from the control house. The spillway is 78 feet from the south end of the dam. The first spillway was 16 feet and 8 inches and was 2 feet 6 inches in height. A second spillway was added to that one.

October 18-19 1955 Holyoke experienced the greatest rainstorm that has ever hit New England.  19 inches of rain fell on this part of the city within 24 hours.  This was the rain from Hurricane Diane that had come up the Hudson River and then passed over the mountains of Western and Central Massachusetts.  Holyoke Water Works feared that the dam would collapse during the height of the rain.  It activated an emergency pipe (12-inch diameter) that is still visible in the berm of the dam (about 40 feet from this spillway).  This led to Hastings Brook and then to a larger pipe (36-inch pipe) that parallels the entrance roadway.  This pipe once led all water from the spillway, the emergency pipe, and from Hastings Brook 488 feet downhill into the concrete structure at the intersection with Roaring Brook.  However, the Lower Intake Reservoir was overwhelmed and a flood of water cascaded down Whiting Street Road to Northampton Street.  The intersection there was destroyed.

Holyoke Reservoir System after the 1955 Hurricane

About 50 feet south of the spillway is an emergency road that was put in place in 1939. This gave workers another access road from the Intake Reservoir area to the spillway area. This spillway was fixed in the year 2023. It has a 1000 year floor spillway put in.

Whiting Street Reservoir Entrance to the old Mount Tom Golf Course

This is the entrance to the old Mount Tom Golf Course.  (LOCATION) The course was six holes in 1898 and then nine holes. Before 1922 it changed to 18 holes.  Donald Ross changed the course in 1922 to a new arrangement. A two lane road passed from here to Northampton Street. The dirt roadway was the transport axis of the course.  Also golfers from Easthampton could come from Sheldon Avenue to the course via the reservoir.

In the 1930s it was renamed to Wyckoff Golf Course.  The course changed drastically in 1964 when the interstate was made to pass through it.  To help the golf course to continue to exist, the Holyoke Water Works on August 24 1964 sold land at low cost to the golf course. The land on the eastern side of the highway was converted into homes as part of the Wyckoff Park.

There had been service to the homes in Wyckoff Park area earlier than the 1960s and they were fed by water pumped from Whiting Street Reservoir. At first the pump was privately owned by Trustees of the Mount Tom Realty Company. This was taken over by the HWW in July of 1935.

About 300 yards south of that golf course dirt road was the old trail from the country club. It is hard to find but use the map at the top of the page to locate it.

Albert Steiger Road

Notice the modern Wyckoff Golf Course.  The stream coming out of the golf course is Roaring Brook.  This is the stream that forms Whiting Street Reservoir.  It starts near Jarvis Avenue and feeds most of the water entering the reservoir.  The road leading south is the Albert Steiger Road. (LOCATION) It was built in 1931 and gave the HWW a road with easy curves and winding grades.

Albert Steiger deeded the land that the road is on to the Holyoke Water Works in 1929.  The road was improved with side gutters in 1938 plus a resurfacing of the road with trap rock dust. However, during the Hurricane of 1938 the road and gutters were destroyed. Thus in 1939 and 1940 this road was repaired and expanded. This road meets Easthampton Road in three fourths of a mile.  Just beyond that crossing is the Old Easthampton Road. There is a long ornate masonry gateway at this old road.  This gate that is still there was built in 1937 as a WPA Works Progress Administration Project.  PICTURES of GATE.

In the spring of 1953, the highway was rerouted and the gate became obsolete. There was talk of building a new one but it never happened.

The brook 100 yards north of this road is the Roaring Brook that feeds the reservoir.  The bridge over it was replaced in 1962.

Very Old Road from Whiting Street Reservoir to Easthampton Street

There are now three roads out of the southern part of Whiting Street Reservoir. The Steiger Road at stop 13 is the newest. Sheldon Road at stop 11 is the one of middle age. Between the two is the road that is the oldest. Its name is not known but it is on the map just above. You can still follow it to the highway. It is about 3/4th of a mile long.

Sheldon Avenue

Sheldon Avenue (LOCATION) was built in 1914 and is 1600 feet long and has easy grades and curves.  Sheldon Avenue to Easthampton Road was once fully gated both here and at its highway entrance.  These gates had swinging gates added in 1920 to prevent the public coming in when the road was soaked.  By 1922 the gate was permanently locked.

It led to Route 141 but is now part of the Metacomet Monadnock Trail and which is itself part of the New England Trail (TRAIL MAP or BROCHURE). The Monadnock Trail was blazed Feb 28 1953 and led to the Metacomet Trail.

The road was named after Jesse Sheldon a water commissioner.  The entire Mount Tom Range is a State Reservation since 1903.  There are three trails that lead from the reservoir into the Reservation.