Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Sparta, MI

Sparta is a village in Kent County, about 10 miles north of Grand Rapids, located entirely within Sparta Township.

The Sparta area was first settled in 1844, and Sparta Township was formally organized in 1846.

The village's first settler, Jonathan Nash, arrived in 1846 and called the place Nashville, building a sawmill on the creek that was later renamed Nash Creek in his honor.

Because Michigan already had a Nashville, the state legislature suggested the name Sparta; the village was platted in 1867 and incorporated in 1883.

The 2020 census counted 4,244 people in Sparta; at the previous census in 2010 the village had 1,644 households.

During World War II, Sparta hosted a German prisoner-of-war camp, and the prisoners were put to work as farmhands on local farms whose workers had gone off to war.

Sparta sits on the Fruit Ridge, the band of high ground north and west of Grand Rapids that is one of Michigan's most productive fruit-growing regions — around Sparta, the apple is king.

Since 1950, fruit growers west of the village have staged the Peach Ridge Apple Smorgasbord, a harvest meal built entirely around dishes made with apples.

Each September the village hosts the Michigan Apple Fest, and each August the Sparta Celtic Festival celebrates the area's Celtic heritage.

In the 1960s Sparta was home to Fenton Records, an independent label whose limited-run garage-band 45s are now highly collectible, sometimes selling for hundreds of dollars.