Springfield

Sister cities

• Viterbo
• Takikawa

History

The area that would become Springfield was historically inhabited by indigenous people, with documented middle archaic period sites, a ceramic workshop site from the Woodland period in south Springfield, and the contact period Long Hill site, excavated in 1895. At the time of European contact at settlement, the Springfield area was inhabited by the Agawam tribe, who sold land to English settlers. Springfield was founded in 1636 by English Puritan William Pynchon as "Agawam Plantation" under the administration of the Connecticut Colony. In 1641 it was renamed after Pynchon's hometown of Springfield, Essex, England, following incidents, including trade disputes as well as Captain John Mason's hostilities toward native tribes, which precipitated the settlement's joining the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During its early existence, Springfield flourished both as an agricultural settlement and as a trading post, although its prosperity waned dramatically during (and after) King Philip's War in 1675, when natives laid siege to it and burned it to the ground. During that attack, three-quarters of the original settlement was burned to the ground, with many of Springfield's residents surviving by taking refuge in John Pynchon's brick house, the "Old Fort", the first such house to be built in the Connecticut River Valley. Out of the siege, Miles Morgan and his sons were lauded as heroes; as one of the few homesteads to survive the attack, alerting troops in Hadley, as well as Toto, often referred to as the "Windsor Indian" who, running 20 miles from Windsor, Connecticut, to the settlement, was able to give advance warning of the attack. The original settlement—today's downtown Springfield—was located atop bluffs at the confluence of four rivers, at the nexus of trade routes to…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and , or 3.65%, are water. Once nicknamed "The City in a Forest", Springfield features over of urban parkland, 12% of its total land area. Located in the fertile Connecticut River Valley, surrounded by mountains, bluffs, and rolling hills in all cardinal directions, Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River, near its confluence with two major tributary rivers—the western Westfield River, which flows into the Connecticut opposite Springfield's South End Bridge; and the eastern Chicopee River, which flows into the Connecticut less than north of Springfield, in the city of Chicopee (which constituted one of Springfield's most populous neighborhoods until it separated and became an independent municipality in 1852). The Connecticut state line is only south of Springfield, beside the wealthy suburb of Longmeadow, which itself separated from Springfield in 1783. With wind speeds exceeding , the tornado left three dead, hundreds injured, and over 500 homeless in the city alone. The tornado caused hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of damage to Springfield and wrought significant destruction in a path from Westfield to Charlton, Massachusetts. * East Forest Park: Primarily middle class residential in character. Borders East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. * East Springfield: features Smith & Wesson and the Performance Food Group. Residential and working-class in character. * Forest Park: features Forest Park and the Forest Park Heights Historic District, (established 1975). Residential in character, featuring a commercial district at "The X" and an upper-class garden district surrounding Forest Park. * Indian Orchard: features a well-defined Main Street and…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758)

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  22,760
• Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758)

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  19,325
• Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  19,323
• Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758)

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  19,109
• Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766)

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  17,731
• Baeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766)

  Baeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  16,448
• Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758)

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  15,891
• Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766)

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  15,807

Largest nearby schools

• Springfield Central High
  High · Springfield · 2,095 students · 13.1:1 ratio
• Springfield International Charter School
  Other · Springfield · 1,520 students · 22.7:1 ratio
• Holyoke High
  High · Holyoke · 1,515 students · 11.8:1 ratio
• Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy
  High · Springfield · 1,360 students · 11.1:1 ratio
• Chicopee Comprehensive High School
  High · Chicopee · 1,206 students · 11.4:1 ratio
• West Springfield High
  High · West Springfield · 1,186 students · 12.8:1 ratio
• High School Of Commerce
  High · Springfield · 1,103 students · 7.9:1 ratio
• Springfield High School of Science and Technology
  High · Springfield · 1,087 students · 12.2:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.6 — 2015-01-13
  2 km E of Wauregan, Connecticut
• M 3.3 — 2015-01-12
  0 km NE of Wauregan, Connecticut
• M 2.66 — 2014-08-14
  6 km SW of Deep River Center, Connecticut
• M 2.5 — 2007-10-19
  2 km WSW of Littleton Common, Massachusetts
• M 2.5 — 2002-06-07
  3 km NNW of Hopedale, Massachusetts