GRAND RAPIDS. A city and the county seat of Kent County, Mich., 30 miles from Lake Michigan, and 60 miles west by north of the State capital, Lansing; on the Grand River, at the head of steam navigation, and on the Michi gan Central, the Lake Shore and Michigan South ern, the Pere Marquette, the Grand Rapids and Indiana, the Grand Trunk, and several other railroads (Map: Michigan, II 6). It was settled in 1833, on the site of an abandoned Indian vil lage, and was chartered as a city in 1850. Grand Rapids is the seat of Roman Catholic and Prot estant Episcopal bishoprics. It has a. number of charitable institutions, among them the Butter worth Hospital, Union Benevolent Association Home and Hospital, Women's Home and Hospital, City Home for the Treatment of Contagious Diseases, Saint Mark's Hospital, Emerson Home, Home for the Aged, Holland Union Benevolent Association Home, and Saint John's Orphan Asylum. Here are also the State Masonic Home and the State Soldiers' Home, and, among other prominent structures, the Young Men's Christian Association Building, the city hall, the County and Federal buildings, Masonic Temple, Pythian Temple, and Elk Hall. The city has also a pub lic library and several public parks.
Grand Rapids is the centre of a region inter ested largely in agriculture and fruit-growing, has extensive gypsum-quarries in the vicinity, and is an important commercial city, with a large trade in pine and hard-wood lumber, and in manufactured products. The manufacturing in
dustry is facilitated by the water-power furnished by the Grand River, which enters Lake Michigan 40 miles below, and at Grand Rapids it falls about 18 feet, forming the rapids from which the city derives its name. Among the more impor tant manufactures are furniture, lumber prod ucts, school seats, flour, carpet-sweepers, calcined plaster, foundry and machine-shop products, car riages and wagons, and agricultural implements.
The government is vested in a mayor, chosen biennially, a unicameral municipal council, and subordinate administrative boards—police, fire, public works, health, poor, and assessors—ap pointed by the executive. The highway com missioners, city attorney, building inspector, and plumbing inspector are elected by the council; and the city clerk, treasurer, comptroller, and marshal are chosen by popular election. The annual income and expenditures of the city, in cluding the State and county tax, amount to about $2,290,000 and $1,710,000 respectively, the principal items of expense being $55,000 for the operation of waterworks, $85,000 for the police department, $120,000 for the fire department, and $260,000 for schools.
Population, in 1850, 2686; in 1870, 16,507; in 1890, 60,278; in 1900, 87,565; including 23,900 persons of foreign birth and 600 of negro descent.