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Chicopee is a city located on the Connecticut River in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 55,560, making it the second-largest city in Western Massachusetts after Springfield. Chicopee is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The communities of Chicopee Center (Cabotville), Chicopee Falls, Willimansett, Fairview, Aldenville, Burnett Road, Smith Highlands and Westover are located within the city.

One of the ventures of the Boston Associates, Chicopee is a city built around several smaller former mill communities on its namesake, the Chicopee River. During the 19th century, the city was home to the first American producer of friction matches as well as a variety of other industries, including the Ames Manufacturing Company, an early pioneer in machining lathes, building upon the work of Springfield's Thomas Blanchard, and the largest producer of swords and cutlasses for the Union Army during the Civil War. By the start of the 20th century, the city was home to a number of industrial plants, including those of the Fisk Tire Company, one of the largest tire makers of that time, and some of the earliest sporting goods factories of A. G. Spalding.

Today the city is home to a variety of specialty manufacturers, as well as Westover Air Reserve Base, the largest Air Force Reserve Base of the United States, built in 1940 with the emergence of World War II. Chicopee today goes by the nickname the "Crossroads of New England" as part of a business-development marketing campaign, one that West Springfield also uses. The name reflects the city's location among a number of metropolitan areas and its transportation network. Four interstate highways run through its boundaries, including I-90, I-91, I-291, and I-391, as well as state routes such as Route 33, 116, and 141.

Name

The city is named after the Chicopee River, a tributary that flows into the Connecticut River at the confluence on in its boundaries. "Chicopee" is derived from the Nipmuc language, probably from the words chekee ("violent") and pe ("waters") in most Algonquian dialects, with reference to rapids. The Nipmuc are the indigenous people who occupied this area before the arrival of European colonists.

Alternatively, chikkuppee ("of cedar") may be the adjective form of chickkup ("cedar").

History

Nayasett (Cabotville and Chicopee Falls)

In 1636, William Pynchon purchased land from the Agawam Indians on the east side of the Connecticut River. He moved from the Town of Roxbury to Springfield to found the first settlement in the area that comprises the territory of today's Chicopee Center (Cabotville). Both Cabotville and the Falls were developed as manufacturing centers (villages).

According to local historian Charles J. Seaver, the area above the falls was first settled in 1660. The land purchased from the Indians was divided into districts. Nayasett (Nipmuc for "at the small point/angle") was the name given to the area of what are now Chicopee Center and Chicopee Falls. The settlement in the upper district was at Skipmuck (possibly based on Nipmuc Skipmaug, meaning "chief fishing place" or Shipmuck, meaning "big watery place"), a place above the falls on the south side of the river.

Colonists built a sawmill as the first industrial site along the river. The mill was built at Skenungonuck (Nipmuc for "green fields") Falls (now Chicopee Falls) in 1678 by Japhet Chapin, John Hitchcock and Nathaniel Foote.

In 1786, what was called Factory Village began to develop when two acres of land was leased to 10 local men, with the understanding that they would build an iron foundry within two years. This was accomplished and the business flourished.

In 1823, Jonathan Dwight purchased the water privilege at Skenungonuck Falls in Chicopee. He built a textile mill and five years later, it operated 14,000 spindles and nearly 500 looms, making it the second-largest operation in the state. It processed cotton from the Deep South, becoming part of the extended slave economy and King Cotton. By 1831, settlers had developed two giant dams, two waterpower canals, and two manufacturing communities on the Chicopee River.

In 1848, Chicopee, which for more than two centuries had been a part of the Town of Springfield, was separated and organized as a distinct town. Political factions in Springfield wanted that jurisdiction to remain a town, rather than become a city and take on a mayoral form of government. By partitioning Chicopee, those political factions prevented Springfield from becoming a city until 1852. The result