GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — While excavating the site for their $50 million expansion project, the Grand Rapids Public Museum discovered a big piece of history — a centrifugal pump from the early 1900s.
Imagine a time when Grand Rapids's electricity came from the very river that gave the city its fame.
Alex Forist, chief curator at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, said, “You can see the concrete foundations and then the kind of cobblestone walls — that was the outline of the old Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power building that was built in about 1880.”
Forist added, “The space where we're digging now at the south end of the public museum's property used to actually be a hydroelectric power plant.”
In February of this year, the museum unearthed turbines and equipment from the old Voigt Mill. While that finding was in the front of the museum, their backyard is full of similar surprises.
Grand Rapids
Pieces of Voigt Mill found buried outside the Grand Rapids Public Museum
Forist took me on a tour of the centrifugal pump. He explained, “From what I understand, it's a pretty simple device. The way it works is it has a big shaft coming into it from the top that would have been powered by maybe a steam engine. It spins it, which then draws water in from underneath, spins around this great big pipe and comes out this 14-inch valve at the end.”
To put it more simply, Forist said, “A pump like this basically was used to move large volumes of water very quickly.”
The Grand Rapids Public Museum has been relying on their archives in hopes of finding the purpose of this historic water pump.
“We're actually still trying to figure out exactly how it was used in the hydroelectric plant, but we know that they were using water from the power canal to generate electricity, and somehow this pump was part of that operation," Forist said.
What they do know is that this centrifugal pump weighs roughly 7,000 pounds, and as Forist said, “These pumps are really, really simple devices, but they can move thousands and thousands of gallons of water every minute.”
This centrifugal pump is just one of the historic artifacts planned to be displayed in the museum's upcoming outdoor exhibit.
In referencing the outdoor exhibit, Forist said it "tells the story about how all these different industries in Grand Rapids used sustainable energy, basically used water power, to power their businesses.”
Relics like this represent the history, science and culture of Grand Rapids.
Forist remarked, “Having these types of artifacts out there will kind of help give people something tangible, to see what was here in the past, and literally be able to walk right up to it and touch it.”
The hope for this historic water pump is to restore it, make it safe and display it on their outdoor grounds to teach people about how water power was used in Grand Rapids.
For more information on the Grand Rapids Public Museum, click here.
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