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Kent County Parks Foundation
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Grand Rapids, MI 49523

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Books available through the Kent County Parks office and at Schuler Books and Music on Alpine, 28th Street SE, and in downtown Grand Rapids.

Full Circle: The Story of Kent County’s Millennium Park was completed in 2008 by the Kent County Parks Foundation and Kent County.

Full color, 128 pages, hardcover with dust jacket
Size: 9 x 12 in.

When its Master Plan is complete, Millennium Park in Kent County, Michigan, will be one of the nation’s largest urban parks. Once a pristine and biodiverse environment, the wooded 1500-acre landscape along the Grand River has been used for gypsum and salt mining, oil drilling and other industrial purposes since the mid-19th century. This book tells the story of how a growing circle of public- and private-sector partners worked tirelessly to realize their vision of transforming the once depleted and forgotten landscape into a 1500 acre family-friendly urban park with extensive trail system and greenspace. Today, Millennium Park stands as a remarkable example of community philanthropy and a magnificent bequest to future generations.

Author's Note:
As soon as I started thinking deeply about the Millennium Park project, I began to see circles. The whole effort seemed to be about coming full circle, investing millions to return the land to its original state (or at least, a version of it). I’m not sure if the original peoples would recognize the area today, but I hope so. I tried to capture this sense of the lurking past in the poems. There are so many places in the park where it is possible to feel the presence of the people who came before us. There are actually scars left on the land from generations of use and abuse. I often imagined the first dwellers gathering thousands of years ago in this magnificent environment, enjoying the warm summer weather and each other’s company. It’s exactly what families are doing at the park today. That’s the magic of this story.

The extraordinarily talented team of photographers who captured the essence of Millennium Park:
Brian Kelly
David Lubbers
Robert Neumann
Mitch Ranger
Mary Taber-Lind
Andy Terzes

Cover Photo (top):
Aerial view of Millennium Park Recreation Core that includes a six-acre beach, splash pad, beach house, shelters, picnic areas, playgrounds, and fishing decks.

Back Cover Photo (bottom):
Millennium Park beach promenade walk with tensile fabric shade structure with view of the pedestrian crosswalk, shelters, and picnic areas.

These photos were taken in the spring of 2007 by photographer Brian Kelly.