Second Saturday Walking Tours

On November 12, Jim Boone, long time member of the Board of SPT and resident of the McKnight Neighborhood for 46 years, led a free tour of the Historic McKnight Neighborhood. The free tour started at Thompson Triangle, intersection of Worthington and Saint James Ave. Thank you Mass Cultural Council and Springfield Cultural Council for sponsoring the 2022 tours.

On October 8, Kira Holmes led the Second Saturday walking tour Successes and Losses of the Most Endangered List at 10:30 a.m. Buildings on this tour might have started before the SPT Most Endangered List. The tour departed from Springfield Museums for $5 if you were not an SPT or Springfield Museums member. This tour explored some historic Springfield buildings that are currently on the SPT Most Endangered List. Additionally this tour explored how some previously endangered buildings have moved off the list to successful futures or have been lost to future generations. The SPT walking tours this season were sponsored by the Springfield Cultural Council and Mass Cultural Council.

Guy McLain led the Second Saturday walking tour on September 10 at 10:30am. The tour  departed from Springfield Museums and costed $5 if you were not an SPT or Springfield Museums member. Mark Twain described America in the late nineteenth century as a Gilded Age. A significant portion of the wealth created at this time was funneled into the arts. Museums, libraries, colleges, orchestras, and opera houses were established at a rate that seems astounding today. Springfield, just 25 miles north of Twain's home in Hartford, was a perfect example of the prosperity that he was describing. During the Gilded Age Springfield citizens founded most of the cultural institutions, monuments, and civic buildings that still serve the city today. Also influencing art and architecture at this time was the City Beautiful Movement. This walk explored around downtown Springfield and the legacy of this important era. The SPT walking tours this season were sponsored by the Springfield Cultural Council and Mass Cultural Council.

Robert McCarroll will led the Second Saturday walking tour on August 13 at 10:30am. The tour departed from Springfield Museums and cost $5 if you were not an SPT or Springfield Museums member. This tour explored the older buildings behind newer facades. The SPT walking tours were sponsored by the Springfield Cultural Council and Mass Cultural Council.

Derek Strahan led the Second Saturday walking tour on July 9 at 10:30am. It will started at Riverfront Park, at the parking lot directly across from the end of State Street. No fee was charged. The Springfield Preservation Trust walking tours in 2022 were sponsored by the Springfield Cultural Council and Mass Cultural Council.

This Second Saturday Walking Tour was titled Underground Railroad. The tour began outside of Springfield Museums. If you were a member to Springfield Museums, Springfield Preservation Trust, or PAHMUSA you were free. If not you paid $5 at Springfield Museums. This tour taught the history of Springfield's unsung early residents. Please if you had questions email info@springfieldpreservation.org. The Second Saturday walking Tour season was sponsored by the Mass Cultural Council and the Springfield Cultural Council. Thank you so much!

The first Second Saturday Walking Tour was titled Springfield’s Advent Campgrounds. Everyone who attends will learn the story of relocating summer cottages to make way for a new neighborhood of Craftsman style homes. The tour departed at 10:30am on May 14 from the Intersection of Phoenix and Freeman Terraces (off Carew St. in the Hungry Hill neighborhood). The tour was free and  led by Ben Murphy. Please if you have questions email info@springfieldpreservation.org. The Second Saturday walking Tour season was sponsored by the Mass Cultural Council and the Springfield Cultural Council. Thank you so much!

The SPT Spring House Tour featured homes in Forest Park Heights. The tour was held in the area north of Sumner Avenue, which was developed in the early twentieth century by the McKnight family.

Featured were Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival style homes on Riverview Terrace, an American Foursquare style home on Mountainview Street, and English Cottage style homes on Randolph and Oxford Streets.

generously sponsored by

Groups led by docents visited six graves of interesting nineteenth-century Springfield residents where costumed interpreters spoke about that person. Hour-long walking tours departed every fifteen minutes starting at 3:00 PM from the former chapel at Oak Grove Cemetery, 426 Bay Street.

generously sponsored by

This Spring House Tour featured distinct homes in four different historic districts of Springfield. Lovely homes in the Forest Park, McKnight, Lower Maple, and Mattoon Street historic districts opened their doors. Starting May 23rd, tickets will be available at Flowers, Flowers, 758 Sumner Avenue, The Flowers Box at 596 Carew Street, or by purchasing them online below. Tickets will also be available on the day of the tour from 12:45 to 2:30 on Thompson Street near Worthington Street in McKnight.

generously sponsored by

Groups led by SPT docents visited six graves of nineteenth-century Springfield residents, including philanthropist Primus Mason, chain store pioneer Lyman Besse, and other interesting residents of Springfield’s past. Costumed interpreters spoke at each stop about that person. Hour-long walking tours departed every fifteen minutes from the former chapel and seasonal refreshments were served.

90-acre Oak Grove Cemetery was opened for burials in 1882. The Springfield architectural firm of Richmond & Seabury designed the brownstone entrance arch and Romanesque hillside chapel, behind which bodies were stored in winter to await the thaw for burial.

Voices from the Grave Cemetery Tour generously sponsored by
DABOUL FAMILY CHARITABLE TRUST

Few accessory buildings such as carriage houses survive in the city. Once they were no longer needed, they were replaced or allowed to fall into ruin. This tour highlighted how some of them continue to function in a variety of uses. Featured were a carriage house now an apartment on Bowdoin Street, one now offices on Temple Street, one now a house on Crescent Hill, one with its original stables on Bellevue Avenue, and one now an apartment on Longhill Street. Additionally, a renovated Victorian home on Temple Street was open.

in Partnership with the Mattoon Association

In the 1860s, the east side of Chestnut Street was lined with large estates. In 1870, William Mattoon, a wholesale grain dealer, purchased one to open a new street through the property and began selling lots. Over the next twenty years, local builders constructed attached brick houses, making Mattoon Street one of the few streets in Western Massachusetts lined with such urban structures. Forty years ago, the Springfield City Council and Mayor Frank Freeman established the first local historic district in Springfield to protect this unique area.

SPT and the Mattoon Association are both marked their 40^th anniversary. They are volunteer, private, nonprofit organizations. SPT works to preserve Springfield’s built environment. The Association works to maintain its neighborhood and sponsors the annual Arts Festival.

This tour breaks new ground for SPT by featuring homes developed after World War II. Little construction had occurred during the Great Depression and the war leading to a building boom being in 1945 to meet the pent-up demand for housing. Widespread automobile ownership opened areas not previously accessible by bus and streetcar. Garages changed from being detached structures in the back yard to being attached to the house. Lots grew wider to accommodate the garages and houses became less compact since walking to public transit was no longer required. Expansive front porches disappeared in favor of private patios in back yards. Homes from the late 1940s and early 1950s include one-story Ranches-a style imported from California–and one and a half story Executive Capes-adapted from our own New England tradition. In Springfield, these homes often were decorated with Colonial Revival features.

The tour will open six grand Victorian-era homes dating from the 1880s and 1890s on Worthington Street, Florida Street, Ingersoll Grove, Clarendon Street, and Dartmouth Terrace–all within easy walking distance. McKnight is the largest, most intact, late-nineteenth-century, a wood-frame neighborhood in New England. Among its more than 800 houses are some of the most elegant homes in the Pioneer Valley. Join SPT to tour some of these lovely homes at this magical time of day and season.

The McKnight Twilight Tour generously sponsored by

The 2011 Spring House Tour in Atwater Park featured five homes in the area of Atwater Terrace and Springfield Street. Much of the Atwater neighborhood was developed from the 300-acre estate of George Atwater, founder of the Springfield Street Railway. Ten years after his death in 1902, the Atwater heirs hired the Boston firm of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to create a plan for a pleasant residential area. Chestnut Street Home

Several noted local architects were involved in designing houses. Eugene Gardner and his son George worked on more than a dozen homes. Napoleon Russell and his partner Fred Knowlton designed numerous homes and also helped develop the area around Shefford and Caseland Streets. Max Westhoff, who designed the old Shriners Hospital and the Connecticut Valley History Museum, also worked on homes.

The neighborhood’s park-like setting, proximity to Springfield Hospital, and access to the trolley line encouraged development. Prior to the Great Depression, many houses were built in the popular Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival styles. Noted residents over the years include early aviatrix Maude Tait Moriarty, impressionist painter Harriet Randall Lumis, cork-centered baseball inventor Milton Reach, and Mass Mutual president Betrand Perry.

The Atwater Park Tour of Historic Homes generously sponsored by