Grand Rapids—Gateway to the Playground of a Nation: A Look Back at Promoting the City and West Michigan

by M. Christine Byron

Grand Rapids was widely known in past years for promoting its furniture industry, and is known today as a Cool City promoting its local breweries, ArtPrize, Meijer Gardens and other attractions. The city also played a major role in the development of tourism in Grand Rapids and West Michigan, as the birthplace and home of the West Michigan Tourist Association (formerly called the Michigan Tourist and Resort Association).

In 1920, the Tourist Association created the slogan “West Michigan - The Playground of a Nation” which was used extensively in advertising. Within a few years, Grand Rapids was advertised as the “Gateway to the Playground of a Nation.” The city was promoted as a center for railroads and a crossroads of the State’s growing highway system for tourists and travelers heading further west or north. The tourist association published a wealth of brochures, maps and booklets over the years, and Grand Rapids and Kent County were heavily featured.

While the mission of the West Michigan Tourist Association was to promote all of West Michigan, it worked with other organizations that specifically promoted the advantages of Grand Rapids. The Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1887 as the Grand Rapids Board of Trade. The purpose of the group was to “promote the business interests of the city in every possible way.” In the late 1920s the Chamber started to play an active role in promoting the cultural, recreational and scenic advantages of Grand Rapids to visitors as well as residents. The Chamber published an attractive series of brochures over the years with tiles such as You Will Enjoy Yourself in Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids for Business and Pleasure.

The Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention and Visitors Bureau (now Experience Grand Rapids) had its beginnings as a committee of the Chamber of Commerce, but was organized as a separate entity in 1927 as the Grand Rapids Convention Bureau, Inc. with offices in the Pantlind Hotel. Grand Rapids had already achieved note as a convention center in the 19th century, hosting such conventions as the Michigan Bankers Association in 1896 and the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in 1899. The Grand Rapids furniture market was held in Grand Rapids since 1878 and brought in thousands of visitors to the city during its tenure. The completion of the new Civic Auditorium in 1933 seriously expanded the convention business. Starting in the 1940s, Grand Rapids was promoted as “The Convention Crossroads of America.”

In the mid-1920s the Grand Rapids Advertising Club, responding to Detroit’s boosterism campaign, published a brochure, Grand Rapids, the Gateway to the Playground of a Nation. The brochure spotlighted the exhibit buildings, assembly halls and first-class hotel accommodations for 5,000 visitors. Over the years other groups also promoted Grand Rapids. The Grand Rapids Hotel Association first published The Grand Rapids Visitor magazine in the 1940s. In 1968 the Greater Grand Rapids Motel Association published a brochure, Things to Do! Places to See in Grand Rapids. Efforts to promote Grand Rapids continue today due to the efforts of Experience Grand Rapids and other organizations.

Time-travel with Byron on a visitor’s tour of the Grand Rapids area in bygone years. You’ll visit local attractions like the Furniture Museum, Ramona Park and the Dwight Lydell Fish Hatchery. You might find accommodations in the Pantlind Hotel, the Cody Hotel, or in one a new motels on South Division. If you’re hungry, you could stop at the Schnitzelbank, Cherie Inn or the Southern Barbecue. For a night on the town you might drop by Schmidt’s Show Bar, Club 21, or the Kitten Club in the Morton Hotel. Touring through this presentation as a “visitor” to Grand Rapids, you’ll realize that our city has been a Cool City for a long time.

Christine Byron retired in 2012 from her position as the Local Historical Collections librarian for the Grand Rapids Public Library. She is an avid reader of Michigan history and is especially interested in the history of Michigan’s tourism industry. She and her husband, Tom Wilson, have collected old Michigan travel and tourist memorabilia for over thirty years. Their collection of antique postcards and tourist and travel ephemera was the inspiration for their five books: Vintage Views Along Scenic M-22 including Sleeping Bear Dunes (2015), Vintage Views Along the West Michigan Pike: From Sand Trails to US-31 (2011), Vintage Views of the Mackinac Straits Region (2007), Vintage Views of the Charlevoix—Petoskey Region (2005) and Vintage Views of Leelanau County (2002). Three of their books have won Michigan Notable Book Awards from the Library of Michigan and two books have won State History Awards from the Historical Society of Michigan. The couple have a “Vintage Views” column in Michigan Blue magazine. Byron serves on the board of the Grand Rapids Historical Commission.

“Grand Rapids—Gateway to the Playground of a Nation: A Look Back at Promoting the City and West Michigan” Thursday, April 12, 2018, 7:00 p.m. presented by M. Christine Byron.