Welcome to the Discover Montcalm dot com podcast, where we’re going to reflect on Montcalm County, the communities, the businesses, the attractions, and the people that make up Montcalm County.

Host and producer Duane Weed reflects on going back in time and looking at how people have started their businesses, how the communities have grown in their history.

In episode six. Margaret Krebs came to the studio and talked to us about her 100 years of change. And, you know, one of the things that she was talking about was back when her mom was single and was a teacher where Burley Park is today. Her mom would take the train from Trufant to Burley Park, spend a week teaching, and then go back home to her parents house. Margaret wishes her mom would have seen a washer and dryer and indoor plumbing. When asked about what were some of the things that they did, you know, reflect back on her childhood or her younger years. And she talked about the Danish Brotherhood hall in Trufant and kind of what that building that group did to kind of keep the community together. “Well, I couldn’t go too far because we didn’t have automobiles. We spent time at the Danish Brotherhood Society hall, states Margaret. “We had dances and dancing at that time was very popular because that was something that didn’t cost much. You had a makeshift band to put on the music, you know, but the whole community came together on a Friday or Saturday night to get together and be social.”

Back in episode two of the Discover Montcalm podcast, Duane asked Bill Garlick to come in from the Fighting Falcon Museum and tell us what is the Fighting Falcon Museum? Bill shares, “Well, the museum is quite an interesting place. It covers the military history of Greenville from the Civil War, all the way up through to the end of our modern conflict.” Bill Delp tells us “During the war Gibson in Greenville Michigan had a contract to make incendiary bombs, these incendiary bombs. Gibson wasn’t the only company making. And then there are several companies that manufactured them, Gibson made 750,000 of them for roughly $500,000. That was only $0.75 a piece.” which are pretty cheap warfare bombs. These small bombs were held in a canister of about 150, and it was held in the bomb bays of bombers. And when they were dropped out of the Bombay over their target, the canister exploded and blew these small incendiary bombs. It just scattered them in the sky.” Bill continues, “And when they hit the town, they were over where they’re bombing the target. Each one exploded. And of course, it started a fire. And the minute this happened, they obviously thought they had to put water on them. When they put water on them, then they really had a problem.”

As we reflect back, Ralph Hauenstein was the Reynolds Township supervisor from 1970 to 2005, and in 2018 I had a chance to interview him for what was going to be part of a documentary on Montcalm County. When asked, what was the biggest growth during his time as a supervisor. “I felt as though the development of the whole township and the subdivisions that we had going and the different enforcements that we had protecting those had developed. And the value of the township had gone up millions of dollars from what it was when I took over, it was maybe 12 million or something like that, I think. And went up to 300 million” states Ralph. “You don’t necessarily see it just driving down the road, but if you look throughout Reynolds Township and some of the back roads and the subdivisions back there, there’s some beautiful, beautiful homes and it was very accessible from Grand Rapids. I think that’s one of the primary reasons that it developed so rapidly and we have such good development.”

Reflecting on Montcalm County, the history, the events is why Discover Montcalm is here, to help keep this information alive and shared with the people.