history

Today the fudge-filled historic Mackinac Island is famously car-free, but could you imagine a vehicle bridge to the island? It almost happened.

This high resolution railroad map from 1897 is like no other Michigan map you've ever seen.

Michigan was once home to two neighboring villages of Port Lawrence and Vistula. Today those villages are lost to us.

The winter of 2018 has brought heavy snow to Southwest Michigan, and lots of it - too much for the historic 1880 Heath School near Bangor. The one-room schoolhouse has collapsed due to the snow.

The first ship the US Navy ever called the Michigan today sits in a museum in Pennsylvania. Learn the history of the ship and why it's not home - or is it?

A gurney that once wheeled patients around the Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital is being offered to the public by the State of Michigan in a surplus items sale being conducted by Western Michigan University.

Hackley Park in Muskegon looks like any other downtown park in any city in America with walkways and statues. But some Muskegonites say there's a secret history that goes back to the Civil War.

Time flies when you're having fun. Actually, you don't have to be having fun, because time flies, period. Change! Change is the only constant in ones life. And, with time flying so fast, and change right along with it, my, what change we have seen over the years. What was it like, say, 100 years ago?

Grand Rapids has come a long way in the last 30 years.  The city has grown in size and scope and has had a downtown revival as of late.  The city continues to grow and always seems to be on the top of lists that highlight great cities in America...

These days, it'd take at least two years to watch only only one season's worth of #PeakTV, a quarter of which won't even be around a second year. You’d need some sort of absurd television guidance periodical to navigate it all, but because we love you' we've put together an in-depth look at 30 major must-see premieres kicking off as early as August 31. Come, wrap some barbed wire around your bats and grab a coffee in Stars Hollow, as we descend into the madness that is Fall TV 2016!

An ever sensitive topic though it remains, slavery films in Hollywood have no doubt risen  the last few years in public profile, from '12 Years a Slave' to 'Django Unchained,' and now the trend has reached TV. History will reboot the iconic 'Roots' miniseries as an all-new drama, but who from the original production will have any involvement?

Are you curious about the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s collections, where they come from and what they are used for? If so, then come to the GRPM this fall, and check out the new exhibit Be Curious: A Glimpse at New GRPM Collections.