Conklin Office Furniture is sponsoring the 18th Hole for our Friends of the Library fundraiser "Mini Golf in the Library! ¡Minigolf en la Biblioteca!" on April 7-8, 2017.
Three representatives of the company came to the Library on March 3 to scope out the space in the Teen Room that will become the 18th hole. Conklin owners Franco and Rosemary Arnold and marketing coordinator Mike Morin met with Sandy Ward, chair of the 2017 Mini Golf Planning Committee. Here are photos taken while they putted golf balls into a temporary "practice hole" that Sandy had set up for their visit.
More elaborate greens, in various shapes, will be provided by Library Mini Golf, LLC, in April. Mr. Bolton of LMG will bring a van packed with equipment to create the 18-hole course. Our local Holyoke sponsors are encouraged to bring their own "obstacles" and decorations to enhance their holes, promoting their business.
What will Conklin bring this year? In 2016, for the 2nd Hole, which wended through stacks on Level 4, they added a fabulous chair festooned with bright balloons.
At one point Sandy tried sitting in that Conklin chair, and found it SO COMFORTABLE that she stayed there, relaxing, for a long time...
... long enough to be called a "SANDy Trap" by players trying to navigate that corner!
Meanwhile, a different Conklin chair donated to the 2016 Silent Auction (Friday night in conjunction with the Mini Golf fundraiser) drew many admirers.
People lined up to sit in that deluxe chair valued at over $900. Barbara Freed, right, from Amherst, enjoyed a turn in the Conklin chair during the 2016 auction.
We thank Conklin Office Furniture for such generosity. Funds raised by the Friends of the Holyoke Public Library are used to support and enhance library programs and services.
After visiting the Teen Room Friday, Franco, Rosemary, and Mike explored other parts of the Library. They especially enjoyed meeting Archivist Eileen Crosby and learning from her about resources relevant to their company's history. She pulled out old maps of Holyoke's canals and the mills along them, including the mill building at 56 Canal Street now owned by Conklin.
Photographs in the Holyoke History Room collection document how their building had looked in the past.
Only some of the original mill buildings owned by American Thread Company remain today. Nevertheless, the portion now owned by Conklin is huge – the area the size of "three football fields," says Franco.
Franco expressed particular interest in finding an image or description of the cupola that used to adorn the top of their mill building (formerly American Thread Company, and originally The Hadley Company). Eileen quickly found a small photo, which she offered to scan.
See more photos below. Sandy followed the Conklin officers back to Canal Street and explored not only that building, but their other facility on Appleton Street.
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| Click on this 1876 image to enlarge |
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Compare the photos above: 1892, from Picturesque Hampden, Part II, and 2017 (lacking cupola).
The building in the right foreground now belongs to Hadley Printing, another of our Mini Golf sponsors. |
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| 56 Canal Street, Holyoke |
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| 75 Appleton Street, a huge Conklin building now capped with SOLAR panels. |
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| Conklin is very proud of the extensive array of solar panels recently added to their Appleton building. |
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If you stand on Bowers Street near Kelly School, on the hill above Sullivan Scrap,
you can catch a glimpse of the solar panel layer on the Conklin roof. |
Conklin is an environmentally-friendly business, recycling and refurbishing office furniture. See their website for more information:
www.conklinoffice.com
