Grand Rapids’ Water Treatment Plant; Grand Rapids, Michigan (+42.9893, -85.6704)

On the north side of Grand Rapids, not far from the Grand River is a beautiful red brick complex. It was built in 1912 for providing drinking water to the city. The water was pulled from the Grand River and treated for the public. This seems a little frightening today, when we realize how many impurities were in the river, but it provided a needed service. More information is listed on the historic marker at the site. The building today is a complex of offices, and Grand Rapids water comes from Lake Michigan.

The most unique historical fact about the plant was that it was the first place where fluoride was added to public drinking water to reduce tooth decay. Too much fluoride can discolor teeth and cause other problems, but the minute amount added to water in 1945 was a game changer in 1945. For more information, see the article by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (part of the National Institute of Health). In case the government decides that this part of our history should be removed, here are the parts pertaining to NIH and Grand Rapids:

The architect of these first fluoride studies was Dr. H. Trendley Dean, head of the Dental Hygiene Unit at the National Institute of Health (NIH). Dean began investigating the epidemiology of fluorosis in 1931. … By the late 1930s, he and his staff had made a critical discovery. Namely, fluoride levels of up to 1.0 ppm in drinking water did not cause enamel fluorosis in most people and only mild enamel fluorosis in a small percentage of people. … This finding sent Dean’s thoughts spiraling in a new direction. He recalled from reading McKay’s and Black’s studies on fluorosis that mottled tooth enamel is unusually resistant to decay. Dean wondered whether adding fluoride to drinking water at physically and cosmetically safe levels would help fight tooth decay. This hypothesis, Dean told his colleagues, would need to be tested. In 1944, Dean got his wish. That year, the City Commission of Grand Rapids, Michigan- after numerous discussions with researchers from the PHS, the Michigan Department of Health, and other public health organizations-voted to add fluoride to its public water supply the following year. In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first city in the world to fluoridate its drinking water. The Grand Rapids water fluoridation study was originally sponsored by the U.S. Surgeon General, but was taken over by the NIDR shortly after the Institute’s inception in 1948. During the 15-year project, researchers monitored the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids’ almost 30,000 schoolchildren. After just 11 years, Dean- who was now director of the NIDR- announced an amazing finding. The caries rate among Grand Rapids children born after fluoride was added to the water supply dropped more than 60 percent. This finding, considering the thousands of participants in the study, amounted to a giant scientific breakthrough that promised to revolutionize dental care, making tooth decay for the first time in history a preventable disease for most people.

It is frustrating that fears of fluoridation could reverse this trend. HHS Secretary Kennedy has stoked these fears. In May of 2025, Utah began banning the use of fluoride in its public water. Florida also has a new law that restricts local governments from adding fluoride to drinking water. It is hoped that people will use other tools, such as treatments by their dentist, to help prevent tooth decay, but the cost of doing something extra for dental treatment could make it more likely that the poor will not do it, and suffer the consequences.

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Steel Water sculpture (+42.9655, -85.6744)

Just over 1.6 miles south of the water filtration plant, across the river from the Public Museum, is a sculpture by the West Michigan Dental Community to mark the work done in 1945. It was created by Cyril Lixenberg (1932-2015), a Dutch sculptor, in 2007.

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For more information:

https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/health-info/fluoride/the-story-of-fluoridation

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gmggp2y99o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation

https://www.historygrandrapids.org/photo/751/cyril-lixenberg-creator-of-ste

Book: The Fluoride Wars: How a Modest Public Health Measure Became America’s Longest-Running Political Melodrama (2009), by R. Allan Freeze, Jay H. Lehr

The National Mustard Museum, Middleton, Wisconsin (+43.0954, -89.5111)

This place was a fun place to visit on the 43^rd parallel. It is located in a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin. There is no admission charge for the museum, but you will probably want to bring some money anyway. Donations are gratefully accepted, and there is a gift shop and mustard store.

The museum was established in 1986 from Barry Levenson’s small personal collection of mustard jars. They now have thousands of jars of mustard from around the world. In the basement collection, jars are sorted by state and country. I was impressed at the number of different brands and shapes of mustard containers.

There are some educational placards in the museum, but I am somewhat skeptical of the facts that were presented. For example, there is a card about “The Story of M”, which states that the yellow M&M was originally a tribute to mustard (see photo). There is definitely a tongue-in-cheek feel to the museum.

One display discussed mustard in medical practices, including mustard packs. Unfortunately, they missed telling about a classic film sample of mustard packs, The Three Stooges in “All Gummed Up”. This short from 1947 taught me everything I knew (incorrectly) about mustard packs. It is literally slapstick humor, and doesn’t seem very funny looking back on the film. You can see all you need to know by the screenshot below.

The museum was undergoing some renovations when we visited in May 2025, so some exhibits were somewhat incomplete.

A highlight of our visit was sampling some different types of mustard (also free). We enjoyed one mustard that is recommended for bratwurst, and bought a bottle for future use (Ringhand’s Beer Mustard from Evansville, WI).

For more information:

https://mustardmuseum.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mustard_Museum

Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (+43.0376, -87.9311)

Marquette University is a private Catholic (Jesuit) university with its main campus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I went to visit in 2018 because of my niece Ashley’s interest in architecture and her desire to see the chapel. Because of my amazing lack of knowledge of sports, I didn’t realize that this was the same university that is regularly in the NCAA basketball March Madness. Ignorance is bliss.

There is a small chapel located on the campus. According to the plaque inside the chapel, St. Joan of Arc Chapel was erected in France around 1420. It was abandoned around 1800, and fell into ruin over the next hundred years. In the 1920s, the chapel was moved to a home on Long Island, New York, and reconstructed. After the owner died in the 1960s, the new owner donated the chapel to Marquette University. The chapel was reconstructed, and was in good shape when we visited. It is a quiet place to pause and meditate.

For more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Joan_of_Arc_Chapel

Woolstock, Iowa (+42.5664, -93.8427)

For many Baby Boomers, Superman was in the comic books. But for those fortunate enough to have television, the show “Adventures of Superman” was simply fantastic because it showed the Man of Steel in live action. Who could forget the rousing music and thrilling words? “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound…” The show ran from 1952 through 1958, but continued in syndication for years afterward,

The starring actor in the series was George Reeves. He was born in Woolstock, Iowa, but moved away at a young age. He died at age 45, possibly from suicide, shortly after the show ended. Woolstock is very small (reminiscent of Clark Kent’s hometown: Smallville, Kansas), with a population of 144 in the 2020 census. Much of the town looks rundown, and we did not see anyone in the town at 11:30 a.m, which seemed somewhat ghostly. It felt like a sad reminder of its most famous son who died too young. However, there are still pleasant rural areas around the town, such as a train trestle and grazing cows.

When I visited Woolstock, there are very few indications of the George Reeves connection. There is a sign on the north side of town with George’s picture on it, and the local telephone company has a business graphic at its office that reminds one of Superman’s logo. The most direct allusion is a telephone booth on the southeast corner of Percival Street and Herman Street. There is no indication that the phone booth is a memorial, but inside the booth is a mannequin wearing a suit, the front open to reveal the Superman costume underneath.

I wouldn’t go far out of my way to go to Woolstock, but it is an interesting footnote along the 43^rd parallel.

TV show intro from Youtube:

George Reeves (not to be confused with the other Superman, Christopher Reeve):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Reeves

Woolstock, Iowa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolstock,_Iowa

Grand Rapids, Michigan (+42.9794, -85.5903)

Frederick Meijer Gardens was opened in 1995 by the West Michigan Horticultural Society . Originally, the property was conceived as being mostly a botanical garden; Lena Meijer (Fred’s wife) loved gardens, and supported the local group in developing a local garden. But in order to make the site more of a tourist attraction, Fred helped commission a 24-foot tall bronze homage to Leonardo daVinci’s horse (by sculptor Nina Akamu). While he was involved in the design and construction process, Fred Meijer was exposed to other world-class sculptors. This helped the Meijer family to shift their focus to including works by many sculptors in the park, and made the park into one of the top attractions in Michigan. Many enhancements have been made over the last 30 years, including a butterfly exhibit in the spring and a new Japanese garden area.

It is a wonderful experience to see the gardens at various times of the year. This year, a winter Enlighten program was done, lighting sculptures at night. The 2024 photos below were taken in December.

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For more information, see the following links.

https://www.meijergardens.org/ Website for the Gardens and park today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Meijer_Gardens_%26_Sculpture_Park

CNN 1999 story on The American Horse

The American Horse at Frederik Meijer Gardens, by Larry Ten Harmsel

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32281495-the-american-horse-at-frederik-meijer-gardens-and-sculpture-park

1993 Groundbreaking at Meijer Gardens

Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site, Oriskany, NY (+43.1765, -75.3700)

Oriskany is a village in upstate New York, between Rome and Utica. On August 6, 1777, two armies battled near the village. This was one of the few battles in the war where there were very few Europeans involved in the fighting. I was surprised by this, since I grew up thinking that the patriots fought against the British oppressors. After doing more research, I found that there were many areas in the colonies where the rebels were not in the majority; and there were units of settlers that fought with the British, especially in the early parts of the revolution. For example, the younger brother of Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer fought as a Loyalist.

This battle also marked the beginning of a civil war within the Iroquois nation, as different tribes allied with the Loyalist and Rebel settlers. In 1763, after the French and Indian War, the British had agreed that they would reserve the lands west of the Appalachians for the indigenous peoples. When the colonists ignored this and began clearing the forests, the natives retaliated and joined the British.

The battle was one of the bloodiest in the revolution, based on percentage of the participants. 385 rebels were killed, including Brigadier-General Herkimer. An obelisk was erected in 1884 to commemorate the battle. We visited in September 2024, taking some photos.

After the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, which ended the war and created the United States of America, between 80 and 100,000 Loyalists left the newly created country to settle elsewhere. They ended up losing most of what they had invested in their adopted homeland. One prominent example of the rifts within families was between Benjamin Franklin and his son William.

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For more information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriskany_Battlefield_State_Historic_Site

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127909236-a-few-bloody-noses

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57049135-our-first-civil-war

Welland Canal Lookout, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada (+43.1550, -79.1938)

The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie and allows ships to travel between the Great Lakes. Until the canal was dug, Great Lakes shipping could not get downstream to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, which connects Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean.

When I was young, I thought that the canal had been built as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway project in the 1950s. The project was designed to allow international trade to come to inland ports like Cleveland and Chicago. But the current version of the canal was completed in 1932 (although minor modifications continue to be made. The first, much smaller canal was constructed in the 1820s, around the same time as the Erie Canal in New York state.

The canal has eight locks to get the ships over the Niagara Escarpment (a steep cliff in the Great Lakes area that I will discuss in a later post). It now takes ships about 11 hours to go between Lakes Erie and Ontario. There are bridges crossing the canal. Some older vertical lift bridges, such as the Glendale Ave. Bridge shown here (photos from 1980 and 2024), can be raised and lowered.

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Because of the St. Lawrence Seaway (and the Welland Canal in particular), ocean-going ships are now able to travel into the freshwater Great Lakes. In addition, ocean fish also traveled the same path. This has caused environmental damage to the lakes, such as the alewife damage to the beaches when I was a kid. Later coho salmon were bred to eat the invasive fish, but other unforeseen consequences happened as a result. Now, we have zebra mussels and quagga mussels threatening the native flora and fauna of the lakes. For an interesting discussion that battle, see the book “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes” by Dan Egan.

For more information:

http://www.stcatharinesmuseum.ca/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland_Canal

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35187180-the-death-and-life-of-the-great-lakes

Rye Harbor State Park, New Hampshire (+43.0017, -70.7425)

    This state park is the furthest east point exactly on the 43rd parallel of latitude in the United States. As we drove to the site and paid our parking fee, I was excited to see a tall obelisk near the Atlantic Ocean. But, alas, it didn’t relate to anything about latitude 43 degrees north. It is labeled 1614, and remembers John Smith’s visit to New Hampshire during that year. 

    Yes, this is the same John Smith that was a leader of the first British colony in North America -- Jamestown, Virginia. He was a famous author who loved to tell of his exploits, many of which are doubted. You may remember the story of Pocahontas. According to the 1953 World Book Encyclopedia, “… the Indians captured Smith and condemned him to death. He claimed that Pocahontas, the daughter of the Indian chief, saved him by throwing her body on his when the executioner’s ax was about to fall. This story also is doubted.” 

    Smith was later injured in a gunpowder explosion and returned to England in 1609. He returned to North America in 1614, where he explored the coasts further north of Virginia, which he named “New England” and made accurate maps of the area. According to the information on the memorial, this map was later used by the Pilgrims when they came to Massachusetts and founded Plymouth in 1620.

    The monument was erected in 2014, the 400th anniversary of Smith’s map. I was amused to read that it is 17 feet, 2 inches tall, which is the same as 16 feet, 14 inches (1614).

    In addition, there is a historical marker in the park related to the Isles of Shoals, visible offshore from the park.

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For more information:
http://www.1614monument.com/p/monument.html

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann (2011), Chapter 2 (“The Tobacco Coast”)

World Book Encyclopedia, 1953, “Smith, John” entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_Harbor_State_Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_Harbor_State_Park

Hawkeye Point (+43.46, -95.7089)

This spot, just over 3 miles south of the Minnesota border, is listed as the highest elevation in the state of Iowa. It is located just east of Iowa highway 60, northeast of Sibley, Iowa. 
If you search for “Hawkeye Point” in Google Maps, it is listed as a Mountain Peak. You will be sorely disappointed if you want to see a peak, or even a big hill. Geographically, Hawkeye Point is a rise near a silo. 
 Osceola County has done a good job of making a metaphorical mountain out of a molehill. There is a nice mosaic at the site, and signs pointing to other states’ highpoints. They also have a bulletin board sharing information about other interesting places in the county. 

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For those that prefer the highpont in a state to look like a hill, I would suggest traveling about 15 miles southeast from Hawkeye Point to Ocheyedan Mound.

Ocheyedan Mound (+43.4029, -95.5217)

Ocheyedan Mound was thought to be Iowa’s highpoint until 1971. It is 15 feet lower than Hawkeye Point, but rises high above the surrounding countryside. The mound used to be higher, but until 1909 people removed gravel and sand from the top. 
The mound is technically a glacial kame, formed by retreating glaciers during the last ice age. 

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For more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkeye_Point
https://www.mycountyparks.com/county/Osceola/Park/Ocheyedan-Mound.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocheyedan,_Iowa

Clear Lake, Iowa (+43.1400, -93.3900)

The Surf Ballroom is a nightclub in north central Iowa, near where I-35 enters Minnesota. It could have been torn down long ago except for its important place in musical history. It was the location of the last concert put on by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) on February 2, 1959. After the concert, Holly, Valens, and Richardson took off in a small plane piloted by Roger Peterson. Six miles northwest of the airport, the plane crashed into a field, killing all its occupants. The musicians were all young: Holly was 22, Valens was 17, and the Big Bopper was 28.

For its size, the Surf Ballroom has a tremendous amount of information related to roll-and-roll history. There gold records, handwritten lyrics of the song “American Pie” by Don McLean, and signatures of musicians that visited over the years. It is an oldies paradise.

A non-profit organization runs the site now, For a suggested donation of $5 USD, you can take a self-guided tour of the building. Plan on an hour; unless you are a sentimental baby boomer, which will take you longer if you read all the historical information.

Buddy Holly Crash Site (+43.2200, -93.3744)

After experiencing the Surf Ballroom, the real Buddy Holly fans could also visit the site north of Clear Lake where Holly’s plane crashed. It is a short 11-minute drive, 6 miles north. You can park along the road at the corner of Gull Avenue and 315th Street. You will see memorial glasses near the intersection, and can walk west about a quarter mile to where there is a makeshift memorial along the property line. Pause for a few minutes, remember the musical talent that was lost in that field (e.g. “That’ll Be the Day”, “La Bamba”, “Chantilly Lace”), and grieve the possibilities of what could have been if all of them had survived that fateful night.

For more information:

https://www.surfballroom.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surf_Ballroom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died

To hear the songs mentioned: