Set in the midst of 93 million acres of native American timber land, by the latter half of the 1800’s Grand Rapids led the nation’s wood production. From timber used to build the West to some of America’s most beloved, if mass-produced, furniture, came from the woods of Michigan. Sawmills buzzed and churned along the Grand River, bringing the raw logs to the mills to finish. From wood to build new homes and towns to the furniture to fill them, Grand Rapids was full of entrepreneurs ready to send their products west. When the railroad came, the East also saw their share of Michigan wood products rapidly filling their home ad their needs.

From the New England states to Europe, Grand Rapids called in some of the world’s most ingenious furniture designers and crafters. In less than 40 years from the town’s creation Grand Rapids was a national resource. Not surprisingly, just within 50 years and with the showing at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Grand Rapids furniture became an international competitor.

Unlike the fine individually crafted pieces by the Amish, Grand Rapids provided less custom and more mass produced items. The price tags were low and the volume of production high. From painted pieces (hiding lower quality woods) to glued on decorative appliqués and moldings, Grand Rapids was filling the changing needs of a rapidly growing and newly industrialized society. Mail order catalogues from stores like Sears and Roebucks were filled with Grand Rapids furniture, from finished to assemble yourself.

Grand Rapids was there for the birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement, a.k.a. the American Mission style and on into the Colonial Revival period of the 1920’s. They helped evoke the stripped down Gothic & Medieval designs of Eastlake. Long before Shabby Chic was chic they were distressing fabrics, furniture – and many true antique lovers. Grand Rapids “artists” even managed to capture the essence of beautiful oak by roller “painting” on its natural grains and rays over much cheaper pine. If not for the damage caused by the Great Depression, Grand Rapids may still host the almost seventy-some furniture manufacturers it did at the turn of the 20^th Century. Grand Rapids was participant and witness to the fastest moving time in American history – all thanks to wood.