GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — An educational sign was unveiled in Eastown Monday, highlighting a more than 200-year-old trade route traversed by the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians.
Members of the tribe, U.S. Representative Hillary Scholten and Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand were some of the people who gathered at the intersection of Robinson Road and Lake Drive in Grand Rapids for the unveiling ceremony.
The sign explains how the 10-mile footpath was used to transport goods produced by Ottawa farmers and hunters and connect the Grand River Bands in Grand Rapids to tribal bands at the intersection of the Grand and Thornapple rivers, in current-day Ada, the tribe said.
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The footpath ran along what is now Fulton Street, Lake Drive and Robinson Road. In the 1800s, there was a trading post at that river intersection in the Ada area. In 1931, human remains and evidence of burial-related items were dug up in Wilcox Park by city workers, according to the tribe…