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JANUARY 3 GRAND RIVER PAGEANT L. Jenison at Grand Rapids, lic Library photo When the Indians first built a lean-to at the rapids of the Grand River, little did they dream that a great city would grow and rise where the ashes of the campfire now smoul- dered. And when the first fur trader visited the Indian Village at those rapids, the river first served man in a way it would for many years to come. When that anonymous trader loaded his birch bark canoe with fur and paddled downstream toward the distant lake, he became the first to use the Grand River as a highway of commerce. JOHN C. DERLER about 1870. Grand Rapids Pub- This is the story of steam navige ation on this highway; and over the years, canoes, poleboats, graceful river packets and lowly tugboats all have come and gone. Our story prop- erly begins with that meeting bet- ween the white man and the red man, but this event is lost in time. It is, however, a meeting that occurred hundreds of times across the North- west Territory...two men bartering, exchanging goods and acquiring in trade what each needed. In time the fur trade grew and