Grand Rapids Public Museum construction unearths pieces of history

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Crews building the new expansion to the Grand Rapids Public Museum this week uncovered equipment from the old Voigt Mill that once stood on the site.

The workers made the discovery Tuesday and now are trying to find out if the equipment can be salvaged.

“We spent the last couple of days kind of going through some old maps, old photographs, things like that in the archives, old drawings trying to figure out what it is that we were looking at,” Alex Forist, the chief curator of the Grand Rapids Public Museum, said.

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He said they ultimately determined that what they found was a crucial part of running the mill: two water-powered turbines.

“There was a canal that would have been at a higher elevation up closer to Front Street called the West Side Power Canal that’s full of water. They took water from that canal, brought it down into essentially the basement of the mill and use gravity to spin those wheels to power their equipment,” he explained.

The mill actually served two purposes, doing more than just grinding down wheat into flour.

“It turns out that they also use the same equipment to grind gypsum,” Forist said. “So back in the early days, especially the 1800s Grand Rapids was know for gypsum mining. They pull this mineral up out of the mines, grind it into a powder. They use for building materials sort of like drywall.”

The mill dates back to the late 1800s and was used through the mid-1950s.

“It was finally torn down in the late ’60s, turned into a parking lot for the ’70s and ’80s and then the museum was built on the site here in 1994,” Forist said.

The construction team that found the turbines was working on a $50 million expansion that will include a number of new features, including a riverside terrace and an outdoor classroom.

“We are going to turn this whole area where we’re standing now into a series of terraces, accessible walkways that will let people get right down into the river,” Forist said.

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Crews will spend the next few weeks removing the mill equipment and seeing what can be saved.

“We didn’t know what we were going to find, so I think this is one of the more exciting things that we could have uncovered — some of the machinery that they actually used to operate it. And I think we’re the perfect place to try and save this history,” Forist said.

The museum hopes to clean the milling equipment and eventually put it on display, but Forist said making that happen will depend on its condition.

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