Legend has it that the towering sand dunes of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore reminded him of the ocean dunes in the Netherlands and he decided to make his settlement here in new Holland.
The area was settled by the first Dutch immigrants on the banks of what was called Black Lake (later renamed Lake Macatawa) was a far cry from the picturesque community Holland has become. The area was vast forests that had to be cut and huge swamplands that had to be drained. The Dutch settlers cut the trees for homes and business and created a thriving lumber industry with the rest.

Local legend holds that sparks from the Great Chicago Fire which started October 8, 1871 drifted 30 miles across Lake Michigan to set the city of Holland Michigan on fire the same day. Like Chicago, the Holland fire destroyed most of the wooden stores downtown and several surrounding neighborhoods. Holland’s downtown was rebuilt out of stone and brick instead of wood and many of the buildings and fine architecture can still be seen today.

Unlike neighboring Saugatuck and Grand Haven which had natural lakeland harbors for boats, Holland’s outlet to Lake Michigan was blocked by sandbars at the mouth of Black Lake. After repeated requests to state and the federal agencies for help in building a channel from Lake Michigan to Black Lake where ignored, Van Raalte in 1860 organized a citizens brigade to hand dig a channel to Lake Michigan and open up Holland to lake shipping.

The little Dutch settlement prospered from lakeside port and by the late 1890s had become a thriving summer resort area for summer visitors sporting mammoth hotel resorts near Lake Michigan. A city trolley was built to take residents from Holland to the lake during the summer. The Great Depression and loss of tourism in the 1920s, though, brought an end to the era. All of the great hotels are gone now, lost to fire or the wrecking ball. But, the beautiful vistas once occupied by those grand hotels are now part of the Holland State Park on the north shore of Lake Macatawa.

City Founder helps start Republican Party: The Rev. Albertus Van Raalte brought his flock of Dutch colonist to the wilderness of West Michigan in 1847 to establish the town of Holland. Van Raalte, a few years later, was also the area’s delegate to the first official meeting of the Republican Party on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. Since the Civil War, Holland has voted Republican in every presidential election.

Since the late 1950s, the Holland area has become a major manufacturing and commercial area, home to a more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies plus hundreds of other small to medium size companies. It is the base to some of the largest office furniture and automotive parts companies in the nation. It is also one of the largest regional shopping destinations in Western Michigan, second only to Grand Rapids.
The city is the home to more than 35,000 residents with more than 130,000 people living in surrounding areas. Today it is also the home to Hope College and has branch campuses of Davenport University and Grand Valley State University.

The Holland area is one of the largest business, retail and industrial centers along the Lakeshore. The area is home to such major industries as office furniture manufacturers, auto components, agriculture machinery, fine woodworking, food processors, power boats and yachts, home products, medical supplies, and much more. The area even has a place that makes Dutch wooden shoes.

Michigan Governors Scrub the Streets: It has become a tradition for Michigan Governors to come each year to Holland and participate in the annual Street Scrubbers Parade which kicks off the city’s annual Tulip Time Festival. The Governors join hundreds of “street scrubbers” dressed in traditional Dutch clothes, caps, and wooden shoes to get the streets clean for the festival using straw brooms and pails of water.

It is often said that if you want anything concepted, designed, fabricated and manufactured it can be down in the Holland, Michigan, metropolitan region.
In the business arena, the city covers all bases and brands for new and previously-owned cars and trucks and sport and recreation vehicles including boats. Whether you looking for a new SUV, a snowmobile for winter, or a luxury car for the grand opening of the latest production of Hope Summer Repertoire company, you can find it in the Holland, Michigan, area.