1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Grand Rapids (Wisconsin)

GRAND RAPIDS, a city and the county-seat of Wood county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on both sides of the Wisconsin river, about 137 m. N.W. of Milwaukee. Pop. (1900) 4493, of whom 1073 were foreign-born; (1905) 6157; (1910) 6521. It is served by the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie, the Green Bay & Western, the Chicago & North-Western, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways. It is a railway and distributing centre, and has manufactories of lumber, sash, doors and blinds, hubs and spokes, woodenware, paper, wood-pulp, furniture and flour. The public buildings include a post office, court house, city hall, city hospital and the T. B. Scott Free Public Library (1892). The city owns and operates its water-works; the electric-lighting and telephone companies are co-operative. Grand Rapids was first chartered as a city in 1869. That part of Grand Rapids on the west bank of the Wisconsin river was formerly the city of Centralia (pop. in 1890, 1435); it was annexed in 1900.