George M. Ophoff (5)

In the last decade of the 1800’s, Grand Rapids was quite a different city from what it is now. It was of course, not nearly as large. It had none of the fruits of modern advances in technology which we take so much for granted today. Many of the roads were dirt covered, rutted and rough when wet or frozen, dusty and hot in the summer months. The economy of the city centered in furniture manufac­turing which made Grand Rapids famous throughout the country as the furniture capitol of the world....