Sligh 128 Years... a great beginning

Grand Rapids furniture burst onto the national scene at the centennial furniture exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. By 1900, 40% of everyone employed in the four county area around Grand Rapids was working in the furniture industry. For 50 years, until the mid 1920s, Grand Rapids was the center of residential wood furniture manufacturing in the U.S.

The winds of change were already blowing in the early 1900s. Trees were logged without replanting. Abundant raw materials and lower labor rates in the south inevitably attracted wood furniture manufacturing. A furniture recession that began in 1926 immediately followed by the great depression wiped out most of the residential wood furniture manufacturers in Grand Rapids.

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