Photograph
Catalog Number
2019.1.1046Description
Black and white photograph showing an aerial view of Holland, Michigan. It appears to show the shore of Lake Macatawa looking toward Heinz Co. Notice the water tower in the middle of the photo says "57". It appears that the Georgian Bay ships are in the upper right corner of the photo. The Georgian Bay ships docked at the Montello Park docks from the 1930's to 1950's.History
Randall P. "Randy" Vande Water was born in Zeeland, MI on 3-5-1930 to Bill and Kathryn (Kitty Van Ry) Vande Water. The Vande Waters moved to Holland in 1937. He graduated from Holland High School in 1948 and Hope College in 1952.He edited the Fort Bliss, TX News from 1952-1954 during the Korean conflict and announced the Fourth Army Boxing Tournament on the Armed Forces Radio Network. In 1948 he started announcing The Holland Evening Sentinel local news on WHTC, continuing through his college years.
He spent 4 decades at the Holland Sentinel working as sports editor, city editor, editorial page editor, and managing editor. Randy also authored or co-authored several books on Holland area history.
During those years Vande Water gave numerous illustrated lectures to civic, church and college groups on various subjects relating to the area’s history. He authored a four-volume series of Holland Happenings, Heroes and Hot Shots, Millennium Memories, Holland the Tulip Town, Zeeland, A Walk Through Time, 100 Years of Hope College Basketball, A Century of Heinz Holland, Holland Furnace Co. and the Holland American Band.
Randall (Randy) P. Vande Water, age 88, of Holland, passed away Friday, June 22, 2018.
In 1896 an agent from the H. J. Heinz Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania traveled to west Michigan looking for a place to build a processing factory. Eventually Holland, MI was chosen due to the soil, harbor access and the lobbying of local businessmen (including William Beach, Gerrit J. Diekema, Arend Visscher and Oscar E. Yates).
By 1898 a three-story factory went up on west 16th Street on Black Lake (Lake Macatawa) known as branch No. 7 (1903, 1914 city directories). John J. Baxa (1874-1967) was Holland's manager in 1906 through 1914, followed by James A. Hoover (1872-1957) from approximately 1921 to 1940 and Charles B. McCormick (1897-1977) from approximately 1945 to 1961 (Holland city directories).