Best Web Design in Westfield, MA (2026)

Web Design for Westfield, Massachusetts

Westfield is a small city on the Westfield River in Hampden County, in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. Once the buggy-whip capital of the world, it kept an industrial and academic identity anchored by Westfield State University (founded in 1839 by Horace Mann) and Barnes Regional Airport, home of an Air National Guard fighter wing.

AppWT works with Westfield, MA businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Westfield

Also known as. The Whip City.

History. The Pocomtuc/Woronoco people called the area "Woronoco," meaning "the winding land." Westfield was first settled in 1660 and incorporated as a town on May 19, 1669; it was the westernmost settlement in the Massachusetts Colony until 1725. It was re-incorporated as a city on November 2, 1920. In 1839 Horace Mann founded a state normal school that opened in Westfield in 1844 -- an early coeducational public teacher-training school open regardless of race, gender or economic class -- which grew into today's Westfield State University. In 1939 Alice Burke was elected mayor, the first female mayor in Massachusetts and all of New England. A January 6, 1952 fire destroyed the six-story Westfield Professional Building, prompting a zoning rule limiting building height.

Local economy. In the 19th century Westfield was the world's leading buggy-whip manufacturer; the U.S. Whip Company dominated the global market, and Westfield Whip Manufacturing (established 1884) survives as the last whip maker in the city. Other historic industries included bicycles (Columbia Bicycles / the Westfield Manufacturing Company), cigars, bricks, paper products, pipe organs, boilers and radiators, textile machinery and precision tools. Modern employers include distribution and warehousing operations for C&S Wholesale Grocers, Home Depot and Lowe's on the city's north side. Westfield State University, Baystate Noble Hospital (founded 1893), and Barnes Regional Airport with its Air National Guard base are significant employers.

Culture and community. Westfield has an outsized rock and metal pedigree: metalcore band Killswitch Engage, indie-rock act Sebadoh, and deathcore band Within the Ruins all hail from the city. Notable natives include Don Pardo (longtime Saturday Night Live announcer), Frederick H. Gillett (Speaker of the U.S. House), Massachusetts Governor Joseph B. Ely, and Gilbert Clifford Noble, a co-founder of Barnes & Noble. Geneticist Nettie Stevens, who established that chromosomes determine sex, was a Westfield resident. Local beer culture includes Whip City Brew and the annual Whip City Brewfest.

What makes Westfield distinct. City zoning limits building height to no taller than the fire department's ladder truck can reach -- a rule adopted after the 1952 Westfield Professional Building fire. At its 19th-century peak Westfield produced the overwhelming majority of the world's buggy whips, and a working whip factory still operates there. The 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes flew A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets until 2007, then switched to F-15 Eagles for an air-superiority mission and stands 24/7 alert protecting the Northeast corridor. Nettie Stevens, who discovered the chromosomal basis of sex, and a co-founder of the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain both came from this one small city.

Westfield Landmarks and Local Life

• Westfield State University.
• Stanley Park - a large public park with gardens, a covered bridge and recreation grounds
• Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport / Barnes Air National Guard Base - home of the 104th Fighter Wing
• The Westfield Athenaeum - a cultural and library institution incorporated in 1864 and free to residents since 1895
• The Amelia Park Ice Arena.
• The United States Whip Company Complex - a historic industrial site