Tulip Time — A Biology Teacher's Idea
Near Holland, Michigan
In nineteen twenty seven, a biology teacher at Holland High School named Lida Rogers proposed to the city council that Holland plant tulips along its streets and sidewalks. Tulips were associated in the popular imagination with the Netherlands, and Rogers thought they could serve as Holland the city's calling card. The council was interested but cautious.
Rogers came back the following year with a more concrete proposal, and Mayor Ernest Brooks agreed to spend city funds on one hundred thousand tulip bulbs imported from the Netherlands. The bulbs went in the ground in the fall of nineteen twenty eight. The first Tulip Time festival was held in the spring of nineteen twenty nine. The response exceeded any reasonable expectation. Tens of thousands of visitors came to see the blooms along every street and in every park in the city.
Today Tulip Time is one of the largest festivals in the Midwest, drawing several hundred thousand visitors over about ten days each May. The city maintains approximately five million tulip bulbs in public plantings. The festival includes parades, klompen dancing in wooden shoes, Dutch folk dancing, and a street scrubbing ceremony that reenacts the Dutch custom of washing the cobblestones before a celebration. A biology teacher's suggestion to a city council in nineteen twenty seven became one of the signature events of the Great Lakes region.
