GRAND RAPIDS  , a city and the county-seat of Wood county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on both sides of the Wisconsin river, about 137 M . N.W. of Milwaukee . Pop . (1900) 4493, of whom 1073 were foreign-born; (1905) 6157; (1910) 6521 . It is served by the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie, the Green Bay & Western, the Chicago & North-Western, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways . It is a railway and distributing centre, and has manufactories of lumber, sash, doors and blinds, hubs and spokes, woodenware, paper, wood-pulp, furniture and flour . The public buildings include a post office, court house, city hall, city hospital and the T . B . Scott Free Public Library (1892) . The city owns and operates its water-works; the electric-lighting and telephone companies are co-operative . Grand Rapids was first chartered as a city in 1869 . That part of Grand Rapids on the west bank of the Wisconsin river was formerly the city of Centralia (pop. in 1890, 1435); it was annexed in 1900 .