Doings and Deeds, a Grand Rapids history, part 2

For the previous installment, see Part 1.

In the early 19th century, the now established Three Fires tribes faced a European invasion when in 1821, the Treaty of Chicago ceded the entire region south of the Grand River to the United States. Baptist missionaries built in the villages on the west bank of the Grand River. In this same year, 1827, the shrewd Louis Campau set up shop, eventually purchasing 72 acres of land where downtown stands today - for $90. A number of his relatives settled in the area and also bought land. For a time the language spoken “downtown,” then, was not an Anishinabek dialect, nor English, but French.

Campau, Lucius Lyon, and others prospered through trade and the buying and selling of city lots. The downtown developed, and the people of the Three Fires were slowly pushed out or left. Louis Campau lost a great deal of money in land speculation when the land boom's bubble burst. He had signed a surety bond for the goods in his brother Toussaint’s store, and did not have the money to cover the bills when it failed. Campau was forced to sign over much of his property until all these debts could be sorted out. And there went the neighborhood again. In 1838 the City of Grand Rapids was officially incorporated.

Campau’s entrepreneurial success, his energetic wheeling and dealing, and the displacement of the native peoples who had lived in villages here undoubtedly caused friction and hard feelings over time, but he remained on good terms with Chief Noonday and had many Indian friends all his life. Campau could be generous to a fault, and all of the city was welcome first in his log house, and then in the mansion he built on the southwest corner of Fulton and Gay.

With city incorporation, more settlers arriving, and a more formal city emerging, some of the trappings of East Coast civilization emerged. Chages at first were small and slow. Campau renamed the Indian footpath along the river Monroe Street after President Monroe. Other trails leading to Campau's trading post were eventually called by recognizable names: Butterworth, Kalamazoo, Lake Drive, Plainfield, and Walker. Joel Guild built the first frame house with lumber sawed at an Indian mill in 1833. That Christmas in a letter to relatives, Guild wrote that the area was "settling very fast with respectable citizens." It was much easier for settlers to travel to Michigan and all parts west after the Erie Canal was complete in 1825. Guild mailed that letter from one of the area's two post offices.

Major earthworks projects reshaped the river and removed Prospect Hill. Farms sprung up in all directions radiating from the village. The Lucius Lyon Salt Works opened in 1842, and the Granger & Ball gypsum mill began operation. John Ball's name appears first in the city's records in 1836, and when the census was first taken in 1845, there were 1,510 residents. By this time the village had shops, mills, factories, tanneries, public houses, smiths, and three doctors. The first Grand Rapids dentist, J.T. Collier, who advertised his services arrived in 1843.

The villagers in Grand Rapids began building more formal churches. The Congregational Church at the corner of Division and Monroe had a thousand-pound bell that tolled the hours; it was one of four local places of worship. When the first east-west stone-foundation bridge was build in 1845, the city was beginning to feel permanently settled. It had by-laws, a fire barn and fire engine, paid trustees, and board sidewalks. The times, they were a-changin'.

Doings and Deeds, a Grand Rapids history, part 1

As the demographic composition of Grand Rapids continues to change, it’s easy to imagine the current influx of immigrants from other countries and elsewhere in the United States and Michigan is something new and uniquely challenging for Grand Rapidians. In reality, the area’s history is full of these kinds of changes.

The earliest identified settlers of the area were the Hopewell Indians, known primarily for the complex engineering of their large burial mounds. Grand Rapids has one of the best preserved of these earthworks downtown, although what remains is only a small part of what the Hopewell built. It’s uncertain what happened to the Hopewell peoples. Some historians speculate that their collapse was due to a greater use of the bow and arrow on the North American continent Since they left no written records, we can only interpret their culture through the ceremonial items they left in their burial mounds, the most common of which are chipped points and blades, celts and adzes, as well as some ceramics and ceremonial ornaments and jewelry made of shells, silver, copper, and mica. Many of the products they crafted were made of materials found far from West Michigan, so clearly there were cross-continental trade routes in existence at the time.

The sixth century saw the decline of the Hopewell, and during the Late Woodland period, a number of other smaller cultures appear and disappear in the fossil record, and by the 16th century, when the French began exploring the area, they found a number of different tribes living along the shores of Lake Michigan, including the Ottawa, the Chippewa, the Menominee, the Sauk, the Fox, the Mascouten, the Miami, and the Potawatomi peoples. They lived separately, spoke different languages (some of them dialects of Algonquin), and had their own cultural as well as food growing or gathering practices which were dependent in large part on the local climate. The Potawatomi and the Ottawa periodically encamped together.

During this period trade flourished among the many groups. The Ottawa (Algonquin for "to buy or sell") were particularly involved in this inter-tribal trade. By the mid-17th century, the Iroquois Indians began expanding their territory into the Great Lakes region in an attempt to monopolize the lucrative fur trade the Europeans had introduced. The Iroquois were fierce fighters, armed with rifles, and their efforts resulted in either the death, forced integration, or the out migration of tribes who fled the violence resulting from the Beaver Wars.

Later the French resumed the fur trade, but conflicts with the Iroquois and the British, as well as an oversupply of furs, made it less lucrative over time. Eventually they abandoned their trading forts in the upper Great Lakes. In 1701 they allowed Antoine Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac to build a model trading post at what today is Detroit, and the French began encouraging the many tribes they had been trading with to do business with them in southeast Michigan instead. Combining these tribes together in one area had some less than peaceful results for the French. Eventually the British moved in on French territory and there were multiple players rivaling each other for dominance of the fur trade. The British treated the native tribes differently, however, and relations between the British and the various Indian tribes was never as friendly or cooperative, even during more peaceful periods.

Eventually the tribes we associate with Michigan history settled the previously emptied out areas. These were the people of the Three Fires, the Ottawa, the Chippewa, and the Potawatomi, who called themselves the Anishinabek, or “the Original People.” The numerous wars with the Iroquois, the French, the British, as well as inter-tribal conflicts had eliminated many tribes from Michigan, so while Europeans visiting in 1600 and 1800 would have seen territory controlled by Indians, there had been a significant amount of shake up as to who controlled what and when. Then, as it has been since, West Michigan's population was in flux.

A revolution in seating, a Grand Rapids tradition

Many Grand Rapidians know that our city  has been known as the Furniture City since the late 19th century. Perhaps you've had a chance to browse the Furniture City exhibit at the Public Museum. Grand Rapids rose to a city of fame in furniture production due to its proximity to the large stands of hardwood that were logged between 1840 and 1900. Michigan was the largest lumber producer in the United States in the latter half of the 1800s. Grand Rapids, being situated on a river between the north woods and Chicago, grew exponentially as a result of this industry and spawned another industry: furniture. All over the city even today stand the old furniture factories that employed so many migrating Americans and Europeans.

But along with the mass-produced parlor and bedroom suites that were shipped to fill new housing going up around the developing country, Grand Rapids companies produced and are still producing innovative pieces that have changed the way we Americans have lived our lives.

In 1886 Grand Rapids School Furniture Company introduced the student-desk combination, which revolutionized school seating. Eventually this company would be known as American Seating and would locate on the Westside. In 1921 American Seating updated this desk to the “Universal” which featured adjustable height, swivel seats, and bases that didn’t need to be bolted to the floor and which was scientifically designed to promote good posture. This model was successfully sold and used for decades.

If you didn't sit in the "Universal" in school, there's a good chance that you sat in another American Seating desk iteration, or rode to school on a bus with American Seating benches, or cheered for the Detroit Tigers in an American Seating fold-up chair.  Grand Rapids chair design has affected our experience of studying and recreating for much of the 20th century. But it would also affect the way we worked.

In 1976 William Stumpf created the Ergon chair for Herman Miller - the first ergonomic chair designed to limit stress on a person working at a desk. By now ergonomics is a commonly used phrase and we have numerous products available to prevent neck and back strain as well as carpal tunnel syndrome and any number of conditions that result from long-term sitting and typing. But the Ergon, and later models, the Equa and Aeron, were breakthroughs for making "a beautiful chair comfortable."

More recently sustainable furniture design has become a focus of Grand Rapids furniture manufacturers. Steelcase designed the Think chair to be not only attractive and ergonomic, but environmentally sustainable. It is Cradle to Cradle certified and composed of only safe materials, 40% of which are recycled. There are no harmful toxins or dyes used in its manufacture which is deliberately designed to minimized energy use and emissions. When the chair is no longer usable, it is 98% recyclable itself.

Clearly, this type of manufacture is an order of magnitude away from clear cutting forests to mass produce furniture, although much of that original Furniture City furniture still occupies bedrooms and dining rooms around the country.

What direction will Grand Rapids furniture manufacturers go in next given that models of education and work are likely to change, possibly quite radically, in the next quarter century?