Web Design in Jenison, MI

About Jenison, Ottawa County

Jenison is a fully built-out, entirely unincorporated bedroom community on the south side of the Grand River, named for the sawmill family that arrived in the 1830s. It has no mayor and no city hall, and its roughly 16,600 residents are governed by Georgetown Charter Township, which counted 54,091 people in 2020. Its high school marching band played the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2023, and its softball program won six state titles in nine years.

History of Jenison

• The area was first inhabited by Peoria and Odawa peoples before European-American settlement.
• Georgetown Charter Township records settlement beginning in 1834 by brothers Hiram and Samuel Jenison, while the Jenison community itself is described as settled in 1836 as a lumber site along the Grand River.
• George Ketchum established early sawmills on Rush Creek around 1837, and the settlement took the name George's Town, which became Georgetown Township.

Landmarks and Places in Jenison

• The Husband-Hanchett House at Port Sheldon and Main streets, a State of Michigan historic site that houses the Jenison Museum.
• The Grand River, which forms the community's northern edge and was the reason the first lumber camps located here.
• The Jenison Center for the Arts, the performing arts facility on the Jenison High School campus.

The Jenison Economy

• A bedroom community for Grand Rapids, roughly a dozen miles from downtown, with commuting rather than local industry as the main economic engine.
• Jenison Public School District is the largest single institutional employer, with Jenison High School alone enrolling 1,515 students in 2024-25. A small portion of the community is served by Hudsonville Public Schools.
• Georgetown Charter Township, at 1515 Baldwin Street, provides and staffs the library, senior center (GT Connections), fire rescue, cemetery, parks, and water and sewer departments for a township of 54,091 people.

Community Life in Jenison

• Jenison High School Wildcats compete in the Ottawa-Kent Conference. The softball program won six Class A state championships in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994 and 1995.
• The Jenison marching band is a regional powerhouse. It has taken first place in MCBA Flight II multiple times, most recently in 2025, was a Bands of America Northwest Ohio Regional champion in 2022 and 2023, and marched in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2023.
• The Jenison Center for the Arts on the high school campus hosts marching band, concert band, orchestra, choir and theater.

Local reference: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, www.georgetown-mi.gov