40 Fun Facts About Grand Rapids, Michigan

In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the United States to add what to its drinking water?

Fluoride went into the city's supply on January 25, 1945, as a controlled experiment to see whether it prevented cavities. The results, published in 1950, showed tooth decay had dropped sharply.

Which US president, the only Eagle Scout to hold the office, grew up in Grand Rapids and is buried there?

Gerald Ford was born in Omaha as Leslie Lynch King Jr., then represented Grand Rapids in Congress from 1949 to 1973. He and his wife Betty lie on the grounds of his presidential museum in the city.

Which 1971 hit did thousands of Grand Rapids residents lip-sync in 2011 after Newsweek called the city dying?

American Pie by Don McLean played as the camera toured downtown landmarks and thousands of locals mouthed along. The video drew millions of views, and by 2013 the city was off the 'dying' list.

Which boxer, born in Grand Rapids in 1977 into a family of fighters, retired undefeated with a 50–0 record?

Floyd Mayweather won Olympic bronze in 1996, then came home as a world champion in 2001 to defend his super-featherweight title in front of a Grand Rapids crowd.

A 24-foot bronze horse in a Grand Rapids sculpture park is based on unfinished designs by which Renaissance artist?

Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by the Duke of Milan in 1482 but never cast his giant horse. Sculptor Nina Akamu finished a version five centuries later, and one of two casts arrived in 1999.

Which architect designed the Meyer May House, a 1909 Prairie-style home in Grand Rapids' Heritage Hill district?

Frank Lloyd Wright drew it for a local clothier, and a 1980s restoration returned the house to its 1909 state so completely that even the carpets were rewoven to his designs and colors.

Which Grand Rapids-born rock frontman recounted his childhood move to Hollywood in the memoir Scar Tissue?

Anthony Kiedis lived in Grand Rapids with his mother until he was eleven, then joined his actor father in Hollywood, where he went on to front the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Which household device did Grand Rapids crockery seller Melville Bissell patent in 1876 to clean his own shop floor?

The carpet sweeper sold so well that when Melville died in 1889 his wife Anna took charge of the company, and she is often called the first woman to serve as a chief executive in America.

Which direct-selling company did Grand Rapids school friends Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos start in 1959?

Amway began in the basements of the two friends' homes after a decade of selling vitamins together. Their fortunes later reshaped downtown, where a landmark hotel carries the company name.

The mile-long rapids that gave Grand Rapids its name vanished after what was built on the river?

A series of dams drowned rapids that once ran a mile long and 300 yards wide. Five more low barriers were added during a river beautification project in 1927.

Which actor, born in Grand Rapids in 1992, played the werewolf Jacob Black in the Twilight film series?

Taylor Lautner grew up in nearby Hudsonville and took up martial arts at six. As a child actor he sometimes flew to Los Angeles for an audition and was back in West Michigan for school the same day.

Which actress moved to Grand Rapids at age 11, attended City High School, and later played FBI agent Dana Scully?

Gillian Anderson arrived from London and went through a punk phase in Grand Rapids, dyeing her hair and piercing her nose, while interning at the local Civic Theatre.

Which soul singer, whose family moved from Arkansas to Grand Rapids in the 1950s, later recorded Let's Stay Together?

Al Green was thrown out of the family home as a teenager when his devout father caught him listening to Jackie Wilson. He started his first vocal group while still in high school.

Which sculptor created La Grande Vitesse, the 42-ton steel stabile that appears in Grand Rapids' official city logo?

Alexander Calder had it fabricated in France, and in 1969 it became the first work funded by the National Endowment for the Arts' Art in Public Places program. Its title loosely translates as the city's own name.

Which nickname did Grand Rapids earn after its woodwork drew national attention at the 1876 Centennial Exposition?

Furniture City took hold once the Philadelphia fair put local makers on the national stage, handing a town still reeling from the Panic of 1873 a new growth industry.

Which NHL team signed the Grand Rapids Griffins as its top farm club in 2002, inspiring the slogan Hockeytown West?

The Detroit Red Wings had long wanted a farm club close to home: an earlier one in upstate New York sat 650 miles away, while Grand Rapids is two hours down Interstate 96. Nine former Griffins won the 2008 Stanley Cup with Detroit.

Grand Rapids' LaughFest comedy festival funds a cancer support club named for which original Saturday Night Live star?

Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989, and the support clubs opened in her memory are known for red front doors meant to symbolize her vibrancy.

Which retail chain, based in the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker, opened its first Thrifty Acres supercenter in 1962?

Meijer began in 1934 as a single grocery in Greenville. Its Thrifty Acres store on 28th Street put food shopping and a department store under one 180,000-square-foot roof.

Which NBA guard, born and raised in Grand Rapids, scored 70 points against the Boston Celtics at age 20?

Devin Booker became the youngest player to score 70 in an NBA game, and only the sixth to do it at all. His parents met while his father played for the minor-league Grand Rapids Hoops.

Which Grand Rapids-born author and illustrator won Caldecott Medals for both Jumanji and The Polar Express?

Chris Van Allsburg's hometown made it into the 2004 film of his Christmas book, in which the magical train pulls up outside a doubting boy's house in Grand Rapids.

Which Grand Rapids craft brewery made its name with Centennial IPA and KBS, short for Kentucky Breakfast Stout?

Founders was among the craft breweries that helped the city tie Asheville, North Carolina, in a 2012 online poll for the title Beer City USA, then win it outright a year later.

Which Grand Rapids art competition launched in 2009 with every winner chosen by public vote on phones and online?

ArtPrize turned three square miles of downtown into a gallery that first year, with 1,262 artists showing in 159 venues and $449,000 in awards decided entirely by visitors.

Which Grand Rapids office-desk maker, started in 1912, earned its first patent for a fireproof wastebasket?

Steelcase took its name from a 1921 advertising campaign pushing metal desks over wooden ones. In 1973 it shipped 43,565 pieces to fill 44 floors of the new Sears Tower.

Which women's pro baseball team moved from Milwaukee to Grand Rapids in 1945 and won two league titles there?

The Chicks reached the playoffs every season in Grand Rapids until the league folded in 1954. Theirs was the women's circuit later fictionalized in the film A League of Their Own.

Which Grand Rapids-born astronaut died with Gus Grissom and Ed White in the 1967 Apollo 1 launchpad fire?

Roger Chaffee was 31 and training for his first spaceflight. A planetarium in his hometown carries his name, and a life-size bronze statue of him was unveiled outside the Children's Museum in 2018.

Which designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial also created Ecliptic at Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids?

Maya Lin won the memorial commission at 21 while still a Yale undergraduate. Her downtown Grand Rapids plaza, finished in 2001, is converted into an ice rink each winter.

Immigrants from which country started the Christian Reformed Church, whose US offices are in Grand Rapids?

The Netherlands sent so many settlers to West Michigan that the denomination they formed in 1857 went on to open a seminary and a university in the city.

Which Christian publisher of the NIV Bible was started in 1931 by two brothers in a farmhouse near Grand Rapids?

Zondervan began with brothers Pat and Bernie selling remaindered books and reprinting public-domain works from the family farmhouse in Grandville. HarperCollins bought the firm in 1988.

Which family group with Grand Rapids roots took Diane Warren's Rhythm of the Night into the US top three in 1985?

DeBarge cut the track for the Motown-produced film The Last Dragon, and the album named after it became the siblings' best seller, going platinum.

Grand Rapids is the seat of which Michigan county, named in 1831 after a prominent New York jurist?

Kent County honors James Kent, a New York legal scholar who also represented the Michigan Territory in its border dispute with Ohio over the Toledo Strip.

Which Grand Rapids-born NASA astronaut joined Jessica Meir in 2019 for the first all-female spacewalk?

Christina Koch and Meir stepped outside the International Space Station on October 18, 2019, to upgrade its power systems, then made two more all-female spacewalks in January 2020.

Which Grand Rapids-born screenwriter of Taxi Driver later depicted the city's strict church milieu in his film Hardcore?

Paul Schrader studied philosophy and theology at a local church college but decided against the ministry, heading to film school at UCLA on the encouragement of critic Pauline Kael.

Which Anishinaabe people, led by Chief Noonday, had a village of about 500 at the site of Grand Rapids by 1810?

The Odawa called the village Bock-a-tinck, from a word meaning at the rapids. Noonday later chose to be baptized in the river, believing that adapting was his people's only chance to stay.

Which ancient mound-building culture left the Norton Mounds, earthworks protected by the Grand Rapids Public Museum?

Hopewell people raised the mounds between about 400 BC and AD 400. A second cluster of nearly thirty stood near what became downtown and was levelled as the city grew in the 1800s.

Which mineral did settlers begin mining at Grand Rapids in 1841, grinding it into a soil treatment called land plaster?

Gypsum crops out where Plaster Creek meets the river, a spot the area's Indigenous people already knew. The first open pits were later joined by underground mines.

Which Grand Rapids newspaper editor turned US senator renounced isolationism in a celebrated 1945 Senate speech?

Arthur Vandenberg ran the Grand Rapids Herald for two decades before entering the Senate, and months after the speech he was a delegate at the San Francisco conference that created the United Nations.

The Grand Rapids Art Museum's downtown home was the first new art museum to earn which environmental building rating?

LEED Gold went to the 125,000-square-foot building, begun in 2004 for a museum that had started out in 1910 in a former house on Fulton Street.

Which Grand Rapids-born middleweight champion, nicknamed the Michigan Assassin, was murdered at 24 on a Missouri ranch?

Stanley Ketchel, born Stanisław Kiecal to Polish immigrants, was the first middleweight champion to win the world title back after losing it. A bronze statue of him went up on Bridge Street in his hometown in 2015.

Which New York Yankees first baseman, raised in Grand Rapids, lost his starting job to Lou Gehrig in 1925?

Wally Pipp is said to have sat out with a headache, though accounts differ, and he had scouted Gehrig for the Yankees himself. He spent his last years in Grand Rapids and is buried there.

Which Grand Rapids-born comedian became Conan O'Brien's sidekick in 1993 and followed him to The Tonight Show?

Andy Richter was hired just weeks before Late Night first aired. He left in 2000, rejoined O'Brien as announcer for The Tonight Show in 2009, and stayed at his side when Conan moved to TBS.