West Michigan Furniture Company Building / West Michigan Furniture Company Building

In 1889 Frank W. Hadden, George P. Hummer and Frank Metz founded the West Michigan Furniture Company in Holland. The company produced only bedroom and dining room furniture, which was sold by a twenty-five-member sales force throughout the U.S. and parts of Canada and Mexico. In 1906 the firm created the Engel Lumber and Land Company in Louisiana, which supplied raw material to the Michigan plant. Hummer and his descendants ran the Holland business from 1889 to 1975. The West Michigan Furniture Company was the first large-scale furniture manufacturer in Holland, and the plant was the first local factory with electric lights. This enabled workers to adhere to a ten-hour work day. During the 1890s, a period of national recession, the company employed 20 percent of Holland’s work force, even through the worst economic troubles. In 1899 employment peaked at 635 people. This office building is the only structure remaining of the manufacturing complex.