Get started with Robotics at Davenport University
The predecessor to the modern Davenport University was founded in 1866 by Conrad G. Swensburg, a Union Army Veteran who returned to Michigan from the Civil War. The college, located in downtown Grand Rapids, opened with sixteen students as the Grand Rapids Business College on January 25, 1866. The college offered courses in various office skills, such as bookkeeping, penmanship, business law, and arithmetic. The college operated under various names and in several locations in Grand Rapids throughout its early history. By 1910 the college was on the verge of closing. Michael E. Davenport, a new teacher at the school, reinvigorated the remaining staff and eventually took over the school's leadership in an attempt to revive it.