Cedar Springs: the 'Red Flannel Town'

About 20 miles north of Grand Rapids sits a small town with an unusual claim to fame: Cedar Springs calls itself the “Red Flannel Capital of the World.” Here’s how that happened. Back in 1936, a New York City newspaper writer went looking for old-fashioned red flannel long underwear to survive a brutal winter — and announced he couldn’t find any, declaring them “obsolete.” The two women who ran the local Cedar Springs newspaper took that personally. Their town had been a lumber town, where loggers wore red flannels to stay warm outdoors, and they fired back in print: there are plenty of red flannels right here in Cedar Springs! The story spread across the country on the news wire, orders poured in, and in 1939 the town threw its first Red Flannel Festival. It’s been held every fall ever since — one of Michigan’s oldest festivals — complete with a parade, lumberjack contests, and “Keystone Kops” who playfully toss anyone not wearing red into a pretend jail. You can still buy the town’s official red flannels, including the classic “drop-seat” long johns.