Gippers Bar & Restaurant

Our Story

Melanie Apsey Environmental History 12/6/14 My Place Paper 2929 Kraft, Grand Rapids, Michigan Throughout the semester we've gone back to big ideas such as industrialization, agriculture, and suburbanization, and related them back to how they've shaped the land we live on today. Landscapes often hold a history we aren't at first aware of because of the way humans have changed the land for their benefit and convenience. With industrialization taking place in recent history, we are able to keep the stories alive that the land tells, and pass them on. Although people have slowly become detached from the land we once helped enrich due to easy transportation and agriculture being moved further away from the cities, informing others on what may have taken place right beneath our feet less than 100 years ago may shed light on a new appreciation for certain landscapes. One place I find means something to me and holds an interesting history would be the land my Uncle Jim's restaurant is located on. The address is 2929 Kraft, Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is on the southeast side of Grand Rapids, right next to I96. Throughout the years, my family has done business here, but Jimmy is the most recent owner of Gipper's; a sports bar right off of 28th street. In this part of town, 28th street is a very busy, main road with hundreds of businesses. I worked here right after high school until moving to Kalamazoo, so I spent a lot of time here the summer after I graduated. My whole family is familiar with the location and a couple of my cousins still work for him. After talking to family about topics we've discussed in class, it was brought to my attention that long before Gipper's was around, it was a horse stable where a family kept their animals. The wood on the building that is now a restaurant was used there for the horse stables, and the ground we served food on was where the horses stood. Just next to the deck outside there are apple trees still standing from when the first family used the land for their animals. It's amazing how much time you can spend in one place and look over all of the details that make up what started there. With this information I decided to ask Jimmy if he had any information on the family who first owned the land. He gave me the number of John Dodgson, whose parents first built there before the main roads, traffic, and the splitting up of the land. Dodgson still owns the land and continues to rent it out, unwilling to sell it because of the family ties he has there. According to him, his dad built the horse barn and they kept their horses and other animals there. Other people they knew kept horses there as well. They had a summer house on the land as well. At the time, the land went way past where the highway was and was much larger than what it is now. It resided on a dirt road and not many other people or places were around. After researching Dodgson’s family name, I found that his mother, Kathryn, moved with his father, Glenwood, to Grand Rapids in 1936. “She and Glenwood were founding members of the GR Western Horse Club” (ancestry). This would explain the horse stables. When they resided here, there were dirt roads not nearly as much traffic as there is now. They have kept the land in the family name since 1936 and continue to do so, even through all of the industrialization that has occurred since then. When interviewing Dodgson over the phone, he mentioned the highways that were built interfering with the land. “One reason for the suburban growth is the development of a highway network that permits rapid movement throughout the region. Begun with combined federal, state and local funding for U.S. 131 in the 1950s, the system now features interstate highways I-96 which swings around the north side of the city, I-196 through its center, and newly completed M-6 which forms a connector south of the city. Commercial, residential, retail and manufacturing developments have followed the course of all three highways.” (Olsen). The land is located in Cascade Township in Grand Rapids, so it's about 15 minutes out of the city – by highway. Although the highways helped suburbanize the area, allowing people to get to work without living right in the city, it also changed the lives of many people who owned land on the highway's path. Much of the land was used for agricultural purposes or farms, and in the Dodgson's situation, a horse stable and family home. I96 cut right through their land. When transportation in and out of the city was made easy, other paved roads popped up including what is now 28th street. Businesses were set all along the road and the city kept expanding. ”Returning veterans seeking to establish homes and families, drove a suburban building boom that has continued to the present with little interruption. Once surrounded by open farmland, Grand Rapids today is ringed by suburbs and rapidly growing townships that now exceed the central city's population. Wyoming, Kentwood, Walker, Ada, Cascade and Grand Rapids Townships, Grandville and Jenison have all established their own identities in the past 50 years.” (Olsen). With population growth and a town filled with healthcare and education, the city was better than before the great depression. Another form of transportation causing a major change in the landscape was the airport. The Gerald R. Ford International Airport has been in use since 1919, and has undergone many expansions since. It now covers about 4 and a half square miles next to I96, cutting part of Kraft Avenue off from the rest of itself. “By 1949 the airport's facilities were strained to the maximum and the citizens of Kent County voted to expand the airport at its current location, which would require the purchase of 120 acres and 89 houses.” (Gerald). The Dodgson family did not need to sell their land, but with the expansion came more roads, leading to more businesses becoming neighbors. In class, we talked a lot about people moving out of the cities and suburban neighborhoods growing. Down to Earth author Ted Steinberg illustrated how the automobile had started this process of the construction of roads. His example was New York, and the filth in the city driving people out, and looking for a fresh new start. The middle class was booming and suburbanization allowed them to control the land. When mass production of homes became possible, they were popping up everywhere. The connection to agriculture had already been pushed outside of the city when horses and pigs were deemed too dirty to share the streets with people, and it was only being pushed further away. The more people were leaving the cities, the further these rural landscapes would be from the people that depended on them. After the land had been cut up and no longer seen as the environment for a horse barn, the family decided to leave the lot, keeping it in their name and renting it out. “The highways and the airport were the two main things that really changed everything” said Dodgson, “Businesses slowly started popping up”. Where the horse stables stood, a kitchen, bar, and dining area now exists. The first family to rent from the Dodgson's turned it into an English restaurant. In the late 80s, my Uncle Dave started the first Gipper's here, and in 2009 my Uncle Jim started it back up. The same building has been in use since it first became a restaurant. Among the many businesses now along Kraft Ave., a hotel has always been next door. In combination with the traffic from the highway, the airport, and hotel, this is a prime location for a bar/restaurant. While people moved out of the city, they pushed for different surroundings. This land far out from all of the chaos was perfect in the 1940s for a family to have a summer home and keep their animals on wide-open property, but with the changing of landscape came the changing of culture. This was no longer a peaceful farm land but a way to make money. The Dodgson family may not have the same purpose for the land, but they make money off it, and so do the people who rent it out and use it for their own businesses. Society has moved from being in touch with their land and what it has to offer, to making the land a commodity itself. Renting the land out to other people has changed the meaning it once had, and therefore hides the history of what it first represented. The intrinsic value is no longer seen, and the dollar value is now most important. After all, it would be hard to appreciate a “rural landscape” in the midst of construction and industrialization. The only logical answer was to conform, while keeping ownership under the name that knew its entire background. This landscape has had an impact on many generations of families in different ways due to its surroundings and culture brought by people migrating and increased available transportation. The Dodgson’s first used the raw land without paved roads, and little human impact. They spent summers there and founded the love for animals and horses that their family still has today. When times began to change, impacting how the land would be used, renting it out for businesses to take hold was one way to best make use of the property in its particular location. All that has impacted this land has led my family to be able to start their own history here that will be carried on in the stories of this landscape.