Throwback Thursday: Grand Rapids In The '50s, When It Was Known As 'The Gateway To The Playground Of A Nation'

The Tumblr site FYGR stumbled across this wonderful postcard packet of Grand Rapids in the early '50s, featuring wonderful drawings of the steamboat on Reeds Lake and the bridge over the duck pond at the John Ball Park Zoo.

Enjoy this wonderful trip back in time.

I'm not really sure what it means to be 'The Gateway To The Playground Of A Nation'. I guess because you have to go through Grand Rapids to get up north. I prefer the catchier "A Good Place To Live".

According to the preface to the postcard only 40,000 additional people lived outside the city, so I'm pretty sure they weren't counting anything in Eastern Ottawa County as 'suburbs' back then.

And here's another throwback for you, an historical video...