Editing Mount Holyoke (section)

==History==
[[File:Mount Holyoke summit.jpg|thumb|left|140px|View from Mount Holyoke Summit House]]

===Origin of name===
The mountain was named after [[Elizur Holyoke]], an early resident of [[Springfield, Massachusetts]] and immigrant from Tamworth, England, who was the first European to explore the mountainous region that came to bear his name. The city of [[Holyoke, Massachusetts]], the [[Holyoke Range]], and the ''Mount Holyoke Female Seminary'' (now [[Mount Holyoke College]]) were all named after this mountain, Mount Holyoke, and not directly after Elizur Holyoke. However, Elizur Holyoke's name is still invoked in many references to the mountain.<ref>[http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/about/history.shtml Mount Holyoke College] Cited Dec. 6, 2007</ref>

===The Mount Holyoke Summit House===
[[File:Mount Holyoke1.jpg|right|thumb|220px|Mount Holyoke Summit House]]
[[File:Summit hotel.jpg|right|thumb|220px|Mt Holyoke Hotel, showing summit house and covered electric tram circa 1931]]
In 1821, an {{convert|18|by|24|ft|adj=on}} guest cabin was built on Mount Holyoke by a local committee—one of the first New England summit houses. The property changed hands several times between 1821 and 1851 when it was bought and rebuilt as a two-story, eight-room hotel. Local entrepreneurs John and Frances French were the primary owners; between 1851 and 1900, the hotel and property were subject to a number of upgrades and related construction projects including a covered tramway to the summit of the mountain (first drawn by horse, then mechanized), a railroad from the base of the mountain to a [[steamboat]] dock on the Connecticut River, and the construction of a number of outbuildings and trails. With passenger steamship to the connecting summit railway established, the Mount Holyoke "Prospect House" became a popular tourist destination. The steamship would pick up guests at the ''Smiths Ferry'' railroad station across the Connecticut River in what was then [[Northampton, Massachusetts|Northampton]], ferry them to a tramway leading to the Half Way House. From there guests could take a steep (600 feet long, rising 365 feet) covered inclined tram to the summit (shown in drawing at right<ref>from the personal correspondence of W. Rolfe Brown, August 23, 1931</ref>). The track for this tram was first laid in 1867 and the system electrified in 1926. Competing establishments were soon built on [[Mount Tom (Massachusetts)|Mount Tom]] and [[Mount Nonotuck]] across the Connecticut River, and on [[Sugarloaf Mountain (Franklin County, Massachusetts)|Sugarloaf Mountain]] and [[Mount Toby]] to the north. The Prospect House property passed hands again in the early 1900s, to chain [[hotel]]ier [[Joseph Allen Skinner]], who eventually donated the hotel and property to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a state park in 1939 on the condition that the park be named after him (now the [[J. A. Skinner State Park|J.A. Skinner State Park]]).

The summit house's 1894 annex had suffered from storm damage during the [[Great Hurricane of 1938]] and had been demolished; in 1942 the enclosed tramway to the summit house broke down. A heavy snow storm in 1948 collapsed sections of the roof. Despite proposals to repair the tram it never ran again. The tram was finally demolished in 1965. State funds for maintenance of the summit house during the 1950s and 1960s were never adequate and by the mid-1970s there were proposals to condemn and demolish the summit house. This led to a public outcry and in the mid-1980s the summit house, consisting of the original 1851 structure and the 1861 addition, was restored by the state and through the efforts of local volunteers.<ref name="C">*[http://www.chronos-historical.org/mtholyoke/ ''Mt. Holyoke Range Historical Timeline''] Cited November 20, 2007.</ref>

[[File:Mount_Holyoke_south.jpg|thumb|180px|right|View from Mount Holyoke south ledges along the [[Metacomet-Monadnock Trail]]. [[Connecticut River]] in background]]