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    Holland
    Holland
    Holland
    Ebook162 pages52 minutes

    Holland

    By Randall P. Vande Water and Mary E. Vande Water

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    About this ebook

    Holland, Michigan, has a provincial feel while being cosmopolitan, offering the best of both worlds to residents and visitors alike. In 1847, emigrants from the Netherlands founded Holland. For 85 years, the city has remembered its heritage with Tulip Time, a festival that attracts 250,000 visitors each May to view six million tulips. Clinging to tradition, the residents of Holland dress in Dutch costumes to scrub streets and dance in wooden shoes as they are joined by parading bands in the shadow of a 200-year-old windmill. Over the last 50 years, Holland's cultural diversity has evolved along with an outstanding business community in which numerous industries and unique retail outlets flourish. The city is home to Hope College, has won America in Bloom floral honors, contains an award-winning hospital, and features sugar sand beaches.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 13, 2015
    ISBN9781439650820
    Holland
    Author

    Randall P. Vande Water

    Retired Holland Sentinel editor Randall P. Vande Water and retired Holland Public Schools teacher Mary E. Vande Water have documented segments of Holland's recent history with images from local archives, businesses, and private collections.

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      Book preview

      Holland - Randall P. Vande Water

      Stam.

      INTRODUCTION

      Bolstered by a trading area of 115,000 people from the adjacent townships’ growth in the last half century, the city of Holland, Michigan, with a population of 33,481, has become a major destination for any seeking life adventures in retailing, industry, tourism, and education. This Michigan west coast community, according to the West Coast Chamber of Commerce, is recognized across the country as one of the smartest, happiest and economically-dynamic regions in the nation.

      Holland State Park at Ottawa Beach on Lake Michigan annually attracts more than 1.6 million people and is Michigan’s leader in state park attendance.

      Crowning achievements in several categories in the 21st century honored Holland six times in 2014, including the prestigious America in Bloom (AIB) Floral Arrangement Award and the Five Bloom rating, the top spot for its population category from 24,001 to 50,000. In November, impulcity.com named Holland the second most beautiful small town in the United States.

      The city also won a YouTube video challenge and will host the 2015 AIB symposium. In 2013, Holland won the Outstanding Achievement Award in America in Bloom competition, and the community was named the Tidiest in 2011.

      In the August 17, 2014, Parade, Holland was voted ninth in the Best of the Rest category by magazine readers who selected America’s Best Main Street 2014. Parade wrote, Holland, population: 33,481. Residents say you’d be ‘hard pressed to find a more vibrant’ main drag than West Eighth Street, a four-block stretch ending near Lake Macatawa. A ‘snow melting system’ allows for wintertime strolls and in the spring the town celebrates its Dutch heritage with the Tulip Time Festival.

      Holland was ranked by Lonely Planet in the top 10 US Destinations to Visit in 2014. The Holland-Grand Haven area ranked first nationally in the 2014 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, including Best Physical Health, Basic Access to Necessities, and Perception of Safety. The area ranked third in residents’ overall satisfaction.

      Farmers Insurance named the Holland-Grand Haven area the Most Secure Mid-Sized City in 2013. Also that year, Holland was the subject of six articles by James Fallows included in the American Futures series published by the Atlantic.

      Also recognized as one of the Best Places to Retire in 2011 by Money magazine, Holland was listed 19th. In 2010, Holland was named as a Smartest City, ranked in the top fifth of the country for strongest collective brainpower by portfolio.com.

      Other 2010 honors included Holland’s selection as a Top Economic Development Performer by Site Selection, while Tulip Time was named in the Top 100 Events and Festivals in North America by the American Bus Association.

      With photographs published during the last four decades of the 20th century and the 21st century’s first 15 years, this book captures Holland’s flavor, as the community has moved from a century of Dutch tradition to a city and its environs representing changes in the cultural customs of the times.

      On February 9, 1847, a group of brave Dutch immigrants, led by the Reverend A.C. Van Raalte, left the land of windmills and settled here in the heavy snow. Holland, the given name, has always remembered its original hardy ancestors who incorporated in 1867 and welcomed the 20th century with a population of 3,000.

      Talk of an authentic windmill started in 1961 and concluded in 1964, with the purchase of a Dutch windmill built in the 18th century. It was reconstructed in 1889 and sold to Holland, Michigan, for 8,000 guilders ($2,800).

      A daily reminder of the community’s heritage, this 250-plus-year-old mill, found in Vinkel, Netherlands, was dismantled and transported to Muskegon, Michigan, by ship in October 1964. De Zwaan was rebuilt and dedicated by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands on April 10, 1965. He was joined by Michigan governor George Romney.

      Holland staged its first Tulip Time, continuing the Dutch tradition. The city purchased 100,000 tulip bulbs for a community tulip day at the suggestion of Lida Rogers, a Holland High School biology teacher. They were first displayed in May 1929, two years after Rogers proposed the idea.

      The next few years saw a festival that started with street scrubbing in 1931, and in 1932, bands and Dutch-costumed children and adults joined the throng. By 1935, teenage girls were dancing in wooden shoes to original music.

      Those elements continued in the 85th tulip festival, held in 2014. Since 1979, the festival has been enhanced with professional entertainers, carnival rides, and six million tulips for 250,000 visitors to enjoy for a week in May.

      As Ottawa County’s largest city, including surrounding townships, Holland provides the majority of a large area labor force of more than 100,000, with a forecast predicting employment growing more than two percent in the next couple years.

      Known as Michigan’s Smart Coast, Holland has the highest concentration of lithium-ion battery manufacturing and supporting industries. A variety of businesses flourish in the area, including automotive component assembly, furniture design, prepared foods, manufacturing, and agriculture.

      Hope College, a small Christian liberal arts college started by Holland’s founder in 1866, thrives as a four-year institution affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. Hope has 93 major

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