GR History #3 - GR Beltway Traditional Cache

This is part of our Grand Rapids History Series.
The series is dedicated to somewhat unusual or little known facts about our city.
*If your team is interested in adding to this series of caches (which we encourage), please contact us to coordinate the Series #.

#3 - Grand Rapids Beltway

This cache is located where the "Grand Rapids Beltway System" was almost completed. The small parking area immediately south of the cache is still labeled 3 Mile Road on some maps.

As Grand Rapids became an emerging city in the early 1920's, along with the advent of the inexpensive automobile down state, traffic in downtown GR suddenly became an issue. Since this was well before the introduction of interstate freeways, all traffic went through the middle of town.



With Americans taking to the roads like never before, the federal government created the US Highway System in the late 20's although Michigan already had a numbered system (second state to do so behind Wisconsin.)

To address the local traffic problem, the city planners had an idea of building a "Beltway" around the city to handle the extra traffic. The idea being, that any through traffic would stay on the beltway, avoiding the downtown area, and thereby alleviating much of the congestion.



M-114 was the state highway designation given to the planned beltline, and the first legs of M-114 were completed in 1928, along the west side of Grand Rapids, along what is now Wilson Avenue. Also, the part of what is now 28th St. from the East Beltline to the town of Cascade was built.



Over the next 14 years, development continued on filling in the gaps, including a northern segment that ran from present day East Beltline west along 3-Mile Road to near the Grand River.




By 1942, the plan finally became reality as (now historic) US-16 was assigned to the portion of M-114 that traveled around the southwest side of Grand Rapids (28th St. and Wilson Ave.) connecting Cascade Road to the SE with present day Remembrance Road to the NW without going through downtown Grand Rapids.

With World War II underway in 1943, there was not enough available steel for completing the bridge over the grand river (where the cache is located). So, the 3 Mile Road portion of M-114 was turned back to local control, as building the bridge would be too costly, and the existing beltline was working as planned.


By 1951 the 3 legs of the Beltline System are visible on a state trunk road map, with no (yellow) trunk lines going through town.



In 1953 the Southern and Eastern Beltline (still called the "East Beltline" today) legs became M-21 diverting through traffic from Chicago Drive and Fulton Ave onto the beltway.



The southern and eastern portions of the Beltline System were once part of US-131 taking the N/S traffic from Northland Drive and Division Ave. onto the beltway. US-131 was re-designated to the route we know today when the US-131 Freeway was completed through downtown in 1960. (Michigan was the first state to build a "Limited Access" highway, aka a "Freeway".)




Present day Interstate I-96, built in 1963, runs very closely to 3-mile road across the northern side of GR then turns south very near the East Beltline, essentially following the planned Northern and Eastern sides of the Beltway.

Today the three completed sections still carry state designations:
- East Beltline carries designations M-37 and M-44.
- 28th St and Wilson Ave. carry designation M-11.
- and 3-mile road is a local road.


It's interesting to note that in the 1950's and 1960's the emphasis was actually on promoting what we now call "urban sprawl". Highway designations were all changed to designate primary routes around the city, rather than through it. Grand Rapids' Master plan in 1963 even called for "dispersing residents to suburbs along new highways." Yet today, we've changed many of the Michigan Highways to again go through town in an effort to promote "urban renewal"

Additional notes:
- M-44 ends and the "East Beltline" changes names to "Broadmoor Ave" south of the former south beltway "28th St."
- The Beltline Bar restauraunt (corner of Division and 28th St) today has an unusual name as it is nowhere near the East Beltline or the new South Beltline Expressway, but back when they opened, 28th St. was known as "the south beltline".
- The "North Park Bridge", only 1/2 mile north was enough to handle local traffic that still needed a way across the river.

The cache site , a camoed peanut jar, is on the former location of what was to be the Northern Beltline (3 Mile Rd) bridge over the Grand River.