Grand Rapids

WHAT SOME CONSIDER THE FIRST commercial hydroelectric plant in the USA was not at Niagara Falls, but at the Midwestern city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where, in July 1880 the Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power Company began operations. Power came from a turbine at the Wolverine chair factory, driven by a waterwheel in the West Side Power Canal, next to the factory. DC electricity produced there was wired to 16 electric arc lamps that illuminated outdoor street lights in front of a strip of businesses, including clothing stores, a hotel, and an opera house.

The device that provided the electricity was developed by Charles Brush, and was known as a Brush generator and arc light system. It was becoming well known at the time, and Brush arc light systems were also installed in other cities during the period, including one at Niagara Falls in 1881. The one installed in Grand Rapids was just the first one to be installed that was driven by a waterwheel, with power provided to more than one business. (It should be noted, though, that another site, the Vulcan Street Plant, an Edison DC plant at a mill in Appleton, Wisconsin, opening in 1882, is also called the “the first commercial central station hydroelectric plant in world” because it more clearly sold its power to a variety of commercial and residential customers, more like future hydroelectric plants would).

Grand Rapids is on the Grand River, the longest river in Michigan, 250 meandering miles from its headwaters to Lake Michigan, where it drains at Grand Haven. The rapids on the river, known as Grand Rapids, disappeared as dams flooded them, ponding water to run through power canals to run mills—mills that made furniture that made the city of Grand Rapids, while destroying the Grand Rapids themselves. Logs floated down the river from upstream forests, became furniture in the mills, which then became companies, that became some of the largest furniture companies in the world, like Herman Miller, Haworth, and Steelcase, all of which are still active and based in the region.

Times are changing in Grand Rapids though, like everywhere. The furniture industry, especially the wooden furniture industry, largely moved overseas and south, to places like North Carolina. The companies that have stayed in Grand Rapids are based in warehouse factories in the suburbs and neighboring towns. Today the largest employers in Grand Rapids are health care companies, retail grocery corporations, and other municipal and service industries, which is commonly the case across the land. ♦