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and on city lighting towers 150 feet tall. These early light towers are a
fondly remembered folly, as the towers were so high above the trees and
buildings that most of the streets were in dark shadows. In 1890 the
city's streetcar and cablecar companies were merged and the streetcars
were converted to electricity. As more generators were installed,
electricity became available for homes and stores to use with the new
incandescent lightbulbs made by Edison. When the Poots were in Grand
Rapids in the 1890's, they may have had their first home with electric
lights. However, electricity was considered unreliable at that time, so they
would have also used "dependable" gaslights. Electricity did not become
the dominant source of lighting here until the very early 1900's. This
exposure to electricity had its effect upon Will Poot, as he came to
consider electricity an essential part of modern progress. Ten years later
he would work to electrify several small towns.

In the 1880's, about half of the city streets were graded and covered with
gravel, and a few were paved. There were none of the unusual wooden
"corduroy" log roads of Kalamazoo. To reduce the amount of dust raised
by the heavy traffic in town, water wagons sprinkled the unpaved streets.
In the 1890's and later, many street projects straightened and paved the
streets to accommodate the busy urban traffic of Grand Rapids. An
extensive network of streetcars helped people move about the city.

Most of the city had running water. To provide clean drinking water, the
city built a water reservoir with water purification at an early date in the
1800s. This was because the water of the Grand River was badly polluted
and unsafe to drink. Safe drinking water was one of the city's important
assets. Later, in 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the United
States to add fluoride to its drinking water to reduce tooth decay.

Grand Rapids considered itself a very clean city. The natural grade or
slope of the area created good drainage for the ground water and for
street runoff into the river. In the 1880's the city made a great effort to
build more sewer pipes, but they could not keep pace with the rapid
growth of the population. In 1890 the sewer system had grown to 47
miles of pipes, but was only enough for about 30% of the city. Worse, the
unprocessed sewage was discharged directly into the river just below the
rapids. While Grand Rapids boasted of its clean city, the residents
complained frequently for many decades about the foul stench of the
river.

J.W. Poot's church in Grand Rapids is yet to be determined. He may have
been with a Presbyterian Church as he was in Kalamazoo. Another
possibility would be one of the smaller Dutch splinter churches.
The most common religious denomination in town was the Christian
Reformed Church (CRC), a Dutch separatist church. Four of these were
founded in the year 1857 during the peak of the first wave of Dutch
immigration. The next most common churches here were: Methodist-

(12-2005) - Grand Rapids - - page 4 -