The motto on Montague's town seal says, "Five fingers on one hand". The five fingers are Montague's five separate villages, namely, Turners Falls, Millers Falls, Lake Pleasant, Montague City and Montague Center. Each has a very distinct character and personality and has developed differently. Turners Falls is the municipal and industrial center, hosting the town offices, paper mills and manufacturing companies, schools, an industrial park and municipal airport.
The Millers River bisects the Village of Millers Falls, whose commercial center is in Montague and industrial center in Erving. Montague City borders the Connecticut River and hosts the Farren long-term care facility. Lake Pleasant developed as a revivalist spiritual camp meeting association, around the lake that still serves as the main water supply for the town. Montague Center is a picture-perfect 1830's historic village, with meandering streams, farms, a Grange and clapboard houses surrounding a village green.
The town is recognized as having tremendous potential for growth. State Routes 2 and 63 and nearby I-91 provide excellent transportation access. The 2,000 acres of vacant land in the center of town owned by Northeast Utilities represent the largest undeveloped piece of industrially zoned land in Western Massachusetts. Northeast Utilities first proposed to use the site for twin nuclear power plants in the mid 1970s and still retains plans to build some kind of power plant on it. Large, undeveloped parcels of agricultural land provide long-term financial security for farmers and bucolic vistas for travelers along country roads, as town planners brace themselves for the next wave of housing development.
