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    Wyoming
    Wyoming
    Wyoming
    Ebook177 pages37 minutes

    Wyoming

    By Norma Lewis and Jay de Vries

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    About this ebook

    Wyoming, Michigan, became a city in 1959, the same year Alaska and Hawaii became states, but its history began more than a century earlier. The first permanent settlers came in 1832, and in 1848 the region split, with the northern portion becoming Wyoming and the southern Byron Center. Wyoming flourished. The farmers came first with the businesses that supported them, and industry followed. The various gypsum mines were among the earliest arrivals. General Motors built a stamping plant on Thirty-sixth Street that helped pull the township out of the Great Depression in 1936. It was a success, so the company built a diesel plant on Burlingame Avenue. Reynolds Metals, Steelcase, Light Metals, Bell Fibre, and others found Wyoming a good place to relocate. People wanted to live where they worked, and that meant an ever-increasing number of houses were built, followed by additional schools, churches, shops, and restaurants. Rogers Plaza was West Michigan's first enclosed mall. Though often contentious, the local government did its best to live up to an ambitious slogan, "Wyoming: the City of Vision and Progress."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439641064
    Wyoming
    Author

    Norma Lewis

    Norma Lewis has lived in southwest Michigan for about thirty years and is now in Grand Haven. She loves local history and enjoys the thrill of the hunt when doing researching, mainly because she almost always finds something better than what she thought she was looking for. This is her seventeenth book and her ninth with Arcadia Publishing/The History Press. Along with local histories, she writes silly animal books for children.

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      Book preview

      Wyoming - Norma Lewis

      Voorhees

      INTRODUCTION

      Wyoming, located in Kent County, was first settled in 1832 and prospered because Buck Creek provided power and transportation. In 1848, the early settlement split, and the southern portion became Byron Center while the northern part became Wyoming Township. It wasn’t until 1959, the same year Alaska and Hawaii became states, that the city incorporated to protect itself from the threats of further annexation from both Grand Rapids and Grandville.

      Dr. Electus B. Ward settled in northeast Wyoming in 1881 and built a 280-acre estate that he called Clyde Park in honor of his prized Clydesdale horses. The original house was destroyed by fire in 1916, but the name lives on as the property’s boundary touched on what is now Clyde Park Avenue on one of the city’s main north-south streets.

      General Motors opened its first Wyoming facility in 1936, attracting workers—many of who became residents. During the post–World War II years, Wyoming experienced phenomenal growth. Industry in the area led to residential growth as well. People had the enviable lifestyle of short commutes to good-paying jobs, a good school system for their children, churches, parks, and shopping—all without leaving Wyoming.

      Merchants in the city weren’t just there to make a quick buck. They were an integral part of the larger community. Earl Robson (of the Robson Department Store) hosted an annual anniversary sale, where he served cake and coffee to the local dignitaries as well as hundreds of customers. The cakes grew larger as years went by, with the 45th anniversary cake in 1972 weighing in at 500 pounds. The store remained in business until 1976, a total of 48 years. In addition to his store, Robson served Wyoming as a city council member for more than nine years.

      Marge Wilson, owner of Marge’s Donut Den, exemplifies the kind of community-minded business owner who keeps smaller cities afloat. She opens her shop on Christmas Day because some of her customers have nowhere else to go. She allows a Bible study group to meet in her shop, and she even hosted a small wedding when the bride and groom were short on funds and wanted something more meaningful than a city hall

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