Transportation and Industry: Connecting a City

The early years of Grand Rapids saw the establishment of a trading post on the east side of the Grand, near where Pearl Street is today. As the city grew, the population saw a need to traverse the river by something other than canoe or ferry. The first span to be built across the river, a toll bridge, was at what is present-day Bridge Street. And since its initial wooden covered bridge, Pearl Street has seen a steel bridge and cement bridge cross the Grand River.

The city’s growth can be attributed to growing industries in the area, including the world’s first hydroelectric power plant, which also was the first to supply commercial electric lighting service in Michigan. William T. Powers, an enterprising manufacturer, purchased the necessary river frontage in 1865 and 1866. In the two following years, he constructed the West Side Water Power Canal, completing it in September 1868. Powers became interested in electricity after he learned of an 1877 electric lighting system exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Frederick W. Powers, grandson of William T., recalled that his grandfather attempted to make an incandescent lamp before Thomas Edison’s in 1879. The elder Powers could not solve the vacuum problem, and his lamps burned out withinminutes.

William T. Powers organized the Grand Rapids Electric Light & Power Company on March 22, 1880, in association with William H. Powers (son), Amasa B.Watson, James Blair, Henry Spring, John L. Shaw, Thomas M. Peck, and Sluman S. Bailey. The company acquired a sixteen-light Brush dynamo which was installed in the Wolverine Chair & Furniture Company factory. The machine was belt-driven from the factory’s line shaft, powered by a water turbine. On Saturday evening, July 24, 1880, sixteen electric lights glowed in Campau Place. The first businesses illuminated were Sweet’s Hotel, Powers’ Opera House, E. S. Pierce’s Clothing, Spring & Company Dry Goods, Mill & Lacey Drugs, A. Preusser’s Jewelry, and Star Clothing. The brilliant electric lights proved such a draw for merchants that demand outgrew the capacity, and the machine was moved to Powers’ sawmill at the downstream end of the canal, and output was increased by the installation of a new forty-lightgenerator. Growth of the business by the city street lighting contract in March 1881 justified even more extensive operations. Powers transferred water rights fromthe West Side Water Power Company to Grand Rapids Electric Light & Power, which included 16 first run-ofstone, amounting to two hundred and forty horsepower. On May 27, 1881, a contract was awarded to John H. Hoskin for the construction of a permanent powerhouse which was completed November 1, 1881.

The expansion of Grand Rapids, and West Michigan more generally, gave rise to the need for additional types of transportation. This includes the development of an interurban system with trains that took people from Grand Rapids to the lakeshore from the middle of town and across its own bridge to destinations west. Additional bridges arose as a result of a desire to move quickly from place to place and the addition of expressways to the city. Bridges located on the stretch of the river where the rapids once were are Leonard Street, Sixth Street, I-196 Expressway, Bridge Street, interurban (now pedestrian), Pearl Street, the Blue Bridge (formerly for rail traffic, now pedestrian), Fulton Street and 131 Expressway.