Wyoming, Michigan, became a city in 1959, the same year Alaska and
Hawaii became states, but its history began more than a century earlier.
The first permanent settlers came in 1832, and in 1848, the region
split, with the northern portion becoming Wyoming and the southern,
Byron Center. Wyoming flourished. The farmers came first with the
businesses that supported them. Industry followed. The various gypsum
mines were among the earliest arrivals. General Motors built a stamping
plant on Thirty-sixth Street that helped pull the township out of the
Great Depression in 1936. It was a success, so the company built a
diesel plant on Burlingame Avenue. Reynolds Metals, Steelcase, Light
Metals, Bell Fibre, and others found Wyoming a good place to relocate.
People wanted to live where they worked, and that meant an
ever-increasing number of houses were built, followed by additional
schools, churches, shops, and restaurants. Rogers Plaza was West
Michigan's first enclosed mall. Though often contentious, the local
government did its best to live up to an ambitious slogan, Wyoming: the
City of Vision and Progress.