Grand Rapids Awning Services – by Coye’s Canvas & Awning
Grand Rapids Awning by Coye’s Canvas & Awning is one of the oldest business in Grand Rapids, Michigan according to the city’s history. We have been serving the City of Grand Rapids’ Canvas and Awnings needs since 1855.
Grand Rapids Awning services & products include:
• Porch Roll-up Curtains • Screens • Portable Shelters • Industrial Products • Hospital Products • School Products • Military Products • Government Products • Canvas • Fiberglass • Flameproof Fabrics • Hypalon • Neoprene
Brief History of Grand Rapids – West Michigan as we know it, took shape, literally, in the last ice age when glaciers carved the Great Lakes, dumped the area’s rich soils, and left a glacial river valley that later formed the course for the river Owashtanong, as the Grand was known by the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Pattawatomi tribes.
In the centuries to come, small bands of those Indians traveled the river and the shores of the big lake. European explorers, priests, trappers, and traders followed their routes.
Then, at the start of the 19th century, Joseph and Madeline La Framboise established the first 
trading post in West Michigan, on the banks of the Grand River near what is now Ada.
The rest, as they say, is history – the story of West Michigan.
1806:
1826:
1831:
1836: John Ball, representing a group of New York land speculators, bypasses Detroit for a better deal in Grand Rapids. Ball declares the Grand River valley “the promised land, or at least the most promising one for my operations.”
1847: Hezekiah Smith, a free black man, purchases land in Spring Lake from the state and plans to establish a colony of free blacks. Threats from white settlers force Smith to disband the colony three years later.
1850: The village of Grand Rapids, with a population of almost 3,000, becomes the city of Grand Rapids.
1855:
1870:: Frances Rutherford is appointed Grand Rapids city physician, he first woman in the United States o hold such a title. She specializes in gynecology and pediatrics, and is on the staff of the Union Benevolent Association Hospital, which would become Blodgett Memorial Medical Center.
1872: Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church is established, on of the early worship groups founded by the local black community. It was renames the First Community African Methodist Episcopal Church.
1889: Upon the death of her husband, Anna Sutherland Bissell becomes chief executive of the Bissell carpet sweeper corporation. She would alter initiate progressive labor policies, including workman’s compensation insurance and pension plans, and before they were industry standards.
1899: Hattie Beverly becomes the first black teacher in Grand Rapids. After two years of training in the district’s cadet program, she is hired to teach at Congress Elementary School. Beverly would have an impressive but short career, dying at age 30 after contracting tuberculosis.
1902: A conglomeration of Grand Rapids furniture manufacturers adopts a trademark giving the Furniture City a unified national presence.
1905: Winter storms cause nearly a dozen shipwrecks on Lake Michigan, with the most serious the beaching of the Chicago-based steamer Argo. The Argo is pushed into Holland’s north pier by 65 mph winds on Nov. 24, forcing a treacherous rescue of 22 passengers.
1905: Roberta Griffith, who had moved to Grand Rapids to be with her mother, compiles the first Braille dictionary. Griffith, who had lost her sight as a child, later would create Braille classes in public schools and train Braille teachers.
1906:
1907: Shocked by “enormous” Sunday liquor sales at Reed Lake establishments, new prosecutor John S. McDonald vows to enforce the law that bans peddling booze on the Sabbath.
1910:
1912:Grand Rapids Awning Services – by Coye’s Canvas & Awning
Grand Rapids Awning by Coye’s Canvas & Awning is one of the oldest business in Grand Rapids, Michigan according to the city’s history. We have been serving the City of Grand Rapids’ Canvas and Awnings needs since 1855.
Grand Rapids Awning services & products include:
• Porch Roll-up Curtains
• Screens
• Portable Shelters
• Industrial Products
• Hospital Products
•
School Products
• Military Products
• Government Products
• Canvas
• Fiberglass
• Flameproof Fabrics
• Hypalon
• Neoprene
Brief History of Grand Rapids – West Michigan as we know it, took shape, literally, in the last ice age when glaciers carved the Great Lakes, dumped the area’s rich soils, and left a glacial river valley that later formed the course for the river Owashtanong, as the Grand was known by the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Pattawatomi tribes.
In the centuries to come, small bands of those Indians traveled the river and the shores of the big lake. European explorers, priests, trappers, and traders followed their routes.
Then, at the start of the 19th century, Joseph and Madeline La Framboise established the first trading post in West Michigan, on the banks of the Grand River near what is now Ada.
The rest, as they say, is history – the story of West Michigan.
1806:
1826:
1831:
1836: John Ball, representing a group of New York land speculators, bypasses Detroit for a better deal in Grand Rapids. Ball declares the Grand River valley “the promised land, or at least the most promising one for my operations.”
1847: Hezekiah Smith, a free black man, purchases land in Spring Lake from the state and plans to establish a colony of free blacks. Threats from white settlers force Smith to disband the colony three years later.
1850: The village of Grand Rapids, with a population of almost 3,000, becomes the city of Grand Rapids.
1855:
1870:: Frances Rutherford is appointed Grand Rapids city physician, he first woman in the United States o hold such a title. She specializes in gynecology and pediatrics, and is on the staff of the Union Benevolent Association Hospital, which would become Blodgett Memorial Medical Center.
1872: Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church is established, on of the early worship groups founded by the local black community. It was renames the First Community African Methodist Episcopal Church.
1889: Upon the death of her husband, Anna Sutherland Bissell becomes chief executive of the Bissell carpet sweeper corporation. She would alter initiate progressive labor policies, including workman’s compensation insurance and pension plans, and before they were industry standards.
1899: Hattie Beverly becomes the first black teacher in Grand Rapids. After two years of training in the district’s cadet program, she is hired to teach at Congress Elementary School. Beverly would have an impressive but short career, dying at age 30 after contracting tuberculosis.
1902: A conglomeration of Grand Rapids furniture manufacturers adopts a trademark giving the Furniture City a unified national presence.
1905: Winter storms cause nearly a dozen shipwrecks on Lake Michigan, with the most serious the beaching of the Chicago-based steamer Argo. The Argo is pushed into Holland’s north pier by 65 mph winds on Nov. 24, forcing a treacherous rescue of 22 passengers.
1905: Roberta Griffith, who had moved to Grand Rapids to be with her mother, compiles the first Braille dictionary. Griffith, who had lost her sight as a child, later would create Braille classes in public schools and train Braille teachers.
1906:
1907: Shocked by “enormous” Sunday liquor sales at Reed Lake establishments, new prosecutor John S. McDonald vows to enforce the law that bans peddling booze on the Sabbath.
1910:
1912:
1919: George Smith, a printer from Detroit, helps found the Grand Rapids’ chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
1922: Walter W. Coe, a local baseball celebrity and war veteran, becomes the Grand Rapids’ Police Department’s first black patrolman. Assigned to police the cities black neighborhoods, Coe would win several promotions and, in 1956, be named a captain.
The rest of the century to come…
1919: George Smith, a printer from Detroit, helps found the Grand Rapids’ chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
1922: Walter W. Coe, a local baseball celebrity and war veteran, becomes the Grand Rapids’ Police Department’s first black patrolman. Assigned to police the cities black neighborhoods, Coe would win several promotions and, in 1956, be named a captain.
The rest of the century to come…