Grand Rapids, Michigan

“ Every detail of our journey through the wilderness is clear in my mind. At that time the railroad terminated at Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we covered the remaining distance—about one hundred miles—by wagon, riding through a dense and often trackless forest. My brother James met us at Grand Rapids with what, in those days, was called a lumber-wagon, but which had a horrible resemblance to a vehicle from the health department. ”

“ Speaker, I am a little late getting around to it, but confession is good for the soul. I have sometimes voted to spend more taxpayer's money for worthy Federal projects in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while I vigorously opposed wasteful spending boondoggles in Oklahoma. [Laughter]
Be that as it may, Mr. Speaker, you and I have always stood together against unwarranted cuts in national defense. This is no time to change that nonpartisan policy. ”

“ There were no great gaps between the Michigan units. Grand Rapids was only a few steps removed from Sault St. Marie. All moved at a lively tempo, bolstered by the gay airs. The crowd grew merrier and merrier. The Mardi Gras spirit seemed to emanate from the Michigan troops. Their comedians seemed just a little funnier, possibly because of their anticipation that the long day was nearing an end.
As the Michigan march proceeded and the skyline signs of the city blazed out overhead, it became evident that something of the Mardi Gras spirit was creeping back over the crowd and the marchers. ”

“ TRAVERSE CITY, the county-seat of Grand Traverse county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the Boardman river, between Boardman Lake and the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay, in the N.W. part of the lower peninsula. Pop. (1900) , 9407, of whom 2068 were foreign-born; (1910, census) , 12,115. It is served by the Père Marquette, the Grand Rapids & Indiana and the Manistee & North-Eastern railways, and by steamboat line to Chicago and other lake ports. The climate, scenery and good fishing attract summer visitors. ”

“ The value of the products of the furniture factories and of the planing mills, nevertheless, has steadily increased; that of the furniture factories (of which Grand Rapids is the leading centre not only in Michigan but in the United States) rising from $10,767,038 in 1890 to $14,614,506 in 1900 and $18,421,735 in 1904, and that of the planing mills from $10,007,603 in 1890 to $12,469,532 in 1900 and $14,375,467 in 1904. The total value of the lumber and timber products, the furniture products, and the planing-mill products amounted in 1900 to $80,999,685 ”

“ The manufacture of furniture places Michigan in the third rank in this branch of manufacturing, and has given Grand Rapids worldwide renown. Shipbuilding is carried on largely, as is the making of cars of all sorts and snow-plows for the use of railroads, cariages and wagons, stoves, engines and agricultural implements. ”

“ The salt both at Grand Rapids and Saginaw, is a beautiful article, of great purity.
When Nature formed the Grand River and Saginaw valleys, she seems to have been engaged in an animated contest with herself. The developments are such as to warrant the conviction that other and perhaps equally valuable salt springs lie hidden in the intervening space between those valleys. These and other discoveries plainly indicate that the employment (p. 394) of a large amount of capital in developing the latent resources of Michigan would amply "pay." ”

“ Michigan adopted direct primaries in 1903 for use in Grand Rapids, Kent County. The result was the defeat for re-nomination of the Mayor under whose administration the so-called water scandal had developed. Two years later, candidates in Kent County were requested to go on record as to whether they favored a general direct primary law for the state. All who recorded their positions declared for such a law, and it was commonly reported in the newspapers that opposition to direct primaries would mean defeat for any candidate who took so unpopular a stand. ”

“ A night's run brought us to Grand Rapids. Its people ought to be proud of it. It is not only a thriving, busy town, growing with great rapidity, but is one of the prettiest cities in America. Its business quarters are fine and wear a metropolitan air, but its residence portion is very pretty. The streets are lined with trees, which grow with such luxuriance park commissioners might envy. ”

“ The city owns and operates its water-works; the electric-lighting and telephone companies are co-operative. Grand Rapids was first chartered as a city in 1869. That part of Grand Rapids on the west bank of the Wisconsin river was formerly the city of Centralia (pop. in 1890, 1435) ”

“ In Michigan the common law prevails, and the rule is sustained by an unbroken line of authorities that a grant of land bounded by a stream, whether navigable in fact or not, carries with it the bed of the t ream to the center of the thread thereof. ”

“ What can equal the delight in the wilderness of hearing from home! It was impossible to make Grand Rapids, and we camped where we were, the night cold and raw, but enlivened by the reading and re-reading of letters and newspapers.
Next morning, crossing the right bank of the river, and leaving the boat, we walked to the foot of Grand Rapids. Our path, if it could be called such, lay over a toilsome jumble of huge, sharp-edged rocks, overhung by a beetling cliff of reddish-yellow sandstone, much of which seemed on the point of falling. ”

“ Grand Rapids is one of those exceedingly agreeable, homelike American cities, which has not yet grown to the unwieldy size. It is the kind of city of which they say: "Every one here knows every one else"—meaning, of course, that members of the older and more prosperous families enjoy all the advantages and disadvantages of a considerable intimacy.
To the visitor—especially the visitor from New York, where a close friend may be bedridden a month without one's knowing it—this sort of thing makes a strong appeal at first. You feel that these people see one another every day ”

“ The middle thread of the river was therefore west of the islands. About the year 1836 steamboats were placed on the river, and docks were erected on the east bank, nearly opposite island No. 1. The principal business by boat was with the east side, where the city of Grand Rapids was situated. Steamboats also ran up the west channel to a steamboat warehouse on the west side of the river. ”

“ People are like that about the cities that they live in. They are like that in Detroit. They are afraid that in considering the vastness of the automobile industry, you'll overlook the fact that Detroit has a lot of other [ 128] business. And in Grand Rapids they're the same; only there, of course, it's furniture. ”

“ The Grand Rapids are bad, let me tell you that! It is only within the last fifty years that any one has ever tried to run them. I’ll show you the man who first went through—an old man now over seventy; but he was a young chap when he first tried it. Well, he found that he could get through, so he tried it over again. He and others have been guiding on those rapids ever since. That cuts off the old Clearwater trail from here to Fort McMurray, which used to be their old way of getting north.
“So now you see,” he continued, “why these breeds like high water. It means less work for them. ”

“ There is a drop of twelve feet in about twelve hundred yards in Grand Rapids, with nothing approaching a clear channel among the huge black basaltic rocks that have been scattered about through them as from a big pepper shaker. As far as I could learn, there is no record of any kind of a man-propelled craft of whatever size ever having run through and survived, but a small stern-wheeler, the Shoshone, was run down several years ago at high water. ”

“ Well, when the river goes up the scows can run the Grand Rapids, down below here, without unloading, or at least without unloading everything. If the river is low so that the [Pg 15] rocks stand out, the men have to portage every pound of the brigade stuff. ”

“ Between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, work to the amount of $8,000 has been done.
"The construction of the road bed, bridging, ties, ballasting, &c., from Kalamazoo to the north bank of the Muskegon River, one hundred and three miles, is let to Daniel Beckel, Esq., of Dayton, Ohio. Near two hundred hands are engaged on the work—on the twenty miles north of Grand Rapids. It is the intention of the company, as we are informed, to complete this twenty miles early the coming summer. ”

“ The females visit entirely amongst each other. There is no society or circles in China to which the women are admitted. Marriages are a mere matter of convenience, or, to speak with greater propriety, a kind of bargain settled between the parents and relatives."
We came on very well, and encamped at the Little Detroit, or strait, so called, in the Grand Traverse. This traverse separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. It is computed to be twenty miles over. A cluster of islands enables canoes to pass. There are some hieroglyphics on the rocks. ”

“ Improvements projected.—A survey has been made for a rail-road across the peninsula of Detroit, through the counties of Wayne, Washtenaw, Jackson, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Van Buren and Berrian, to the mouth of St. Joseph river. Another project is, to commence at or near Toledo on the Maumee river, and pass through the southern counties of Michigan into Indiana, and terminate at Michigan city. A third project is, to open a water communication from the navigable waters of Grand river, to Huron river, and, by locks and slack water [Pg 190] navigation, enter lake Erie. ”

“ It is situated on the banks of the James River, and is the center of a large dairying area. Its history dates from the arrival of the railroad in 1883. As the community grew, an intense rivalry was born between LaMoure and Grand Rapids (see below) , a rivalry that did not end until LaMoure, in a hot fight in 1886, won the LaMoure County seat from Grand Rapids, which thereafter declined. Like other frontier towns, LaMoure had many gaming houses and saloons. Residences being scarce, one pious family was forced to live above a saloon. ”

“ Much of the land on Grand river and its tributaries, is excellent, consisting of six or seven thousand square miles;—and, considering its central position in the State,—the general fertility of its soil,—the good harbor at its mouth,—the numerous mill sites on its tributaries,—this region may be regarded as one of the most interesting portions [Pg 184] of Michigan. The Kekalamazoo rises in Jackson and Eaton counties, passes through Calhoun, and the northern part of Kalamazoo, enters the south-eastern part of Allegan, and passes diagonally through it to the lake. ”

“ At first a French colony, the country was handed over to England in 1760, and to the United States in 1776; it was organised as a territory in 1805, and admitted a State in 1837; the chief commercial city is Detroit (206) , on Detroit River, in the E., has manufactures of machinery and railway plant, leather, and beer, and a large shipping trade. Grand Rapids (60) , on the Grand River, has furniture works, and makes stucco-plaster and white bricks. Lansing (13) is the State capital, and an important railway centre. ”

“ On its north shore the country is high and rocky; on the south, sandy and barren. Shallow-draught steamers navigate the lake and river, and Lesser Slave lake and river, with one interruption—at Grand Rapids near the mouth of the Clearwater river. ”

“ We made our camp not far from a house, and, after a vast amount of extremely serious labor on the part of the cook, had a very good supper.
The next day passed with but one incident worth recalling. In the afternoon we crossed the Niobrara at Grand Rapids on a tumble-down wooden bridge, and turned due west through the Keya Paha country. This was so called from the Keya Paha River (pronounced Key-a-paw) , a branch of the Niobrara which comes down out of Dakota and joins it a few miles below Grand Rapids. ”

“ At the Grand Rapids the river expands to about 3⁄4 of a mile in width, its general width not being more than 3⁄5 of a mile, and tumbles over an unequal bed of rocks for about two miles, through which there cannot be said to be any channel ”

“ Let the old world bid them God speed in their work. Only it would be well if they could be brought to acknowledge from whence they have learned all that they know.
Our route lay right across the State to a place called Grand Haven on Lake Michigan, from whence we were to take boat for Milwaukee, a town in Wisconsin on the opposite or western shore of the lake. Michigan is sometimes called the Peninsular State from the fact that the main part of its territory is surrounded by Lakes Michigan and Huron, by the little Lake St. ”

“ We know in this way that Grand Rapids is about 152 miles from Detroit, and that Detroit and its neighborhood along the Detroit river, which is the international boundary, is one of the most active centers for introducing illegally into this country spirituous liquors for distribution into the interior. It is obvious from the evidence that the prohibition agents were engaged in a regular patrol along the important highways from Detroit to Grand Rapids to stop and seize liquor carried in automobiles. ”

“ Grand Rapids, with its multiplicity of perfectly round pot-hole boulders, was passed in four days, and then, again in company with the boats, we entered the real canyon of the river.
Down Athabaska's boiling flood
Of seething, leaping, coiling mud.
CHAPTER III HUMAN NATURE ON THE RIVER Sunday morning, 26th of May, there was something like a strike among the sixty half-breeds and Indians that composed the crews. They were strict Sabbatarians (when it suited them) ; they believed that they should do no work, but give up the day to gambling and drinking. ”