From On the River
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As I strolled into the library conference room awkwardly late, our library aides were describing the disastrous Log Jam of 1883. I didn't even know that Grand Rapids had a log jam or what a log jam was, and I had missed 90% of their story. So I researched.
In the late 1880's the Grand River was a chief spot for log mills-- logs were cut and hauled to the river banks and stored until spring until they are floated to mills.
It was a particularly rainy year in 1883, and the Grand River had begun to flood. This caused intense pressure on the massive pile of logs, and they broke through their barrier. The logs rushed down the Grand and were obscured for a time by the D&M Bridge. They piled up there until the pressure became too strong, and the bridge broke apart. Again the logs ran through Grand Rapids, damaging businesses and bridges along the way.
This was one of the biggest log jams in history and involved over 150 million feets of logs.
