The Pioneer Valley is the colloquial name for the U.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts's portion of the Connecticut River Valley. The Pioneer Valley is within three counties in Massachusetts that collectively feature much of New England's most fertile farmland. The term "Pioneer Valley" is approximately coterminous with Metropolitan Springfield, as Springfield, Massachusetts, is the region's urban center. Most of the cities and towns surrounding Springfield feature unspoiled forests, and Springfield itself, which has been nicknamed "The City in a Forest," features unspoiled nature in its city limits and over 12% parkland.
The Pioneer Valley is known for its scenery and as a vacation destination. The Holyoke Range, Mount Tom Range, and numerous rolling hills, bluffs, and meadows feature extravagant homes from the Gilded Age, many of which surround New England's longest and largest river, the Connecticut River, which flows through the region.
Read more about Pioneer Valley: Tourist Destination, Geology, Political Geography, History, Deerfield, Greenfield, Economy, Conservation
Famous quotes containing the words pioneer and/or valley:
“The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son of earth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the worshipers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To be seventy years old is like climbing the Alps. You reach a snow-crowned summit, and see behind you the deep valley stretching miles and miles away, and before you other summits higher and whiter, which you may have strength to climb, or may not. Then you sit down and meditate and wonder which it will be.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)