Alex Forist

For millennia, people have gathered at the rapids of the Grand River, the place where downtown Grand Rapids now stands. From its earliest recorded history in the 1820s as a tiny frontier trading post, through many booming decades as the "Furniture City," to its newest reinvention as a center of public art, Grand Rapids has a fascinating history. By 1850, when the city was incorporated, several early industries, including logging, milling, and brewing,...