Zeeland’s rise as a major center of the poultry industry began in 1906, when farmer Douwe Wyngarden bought two mail-order incubators and started the area’s first commercial chicken hatchery. Thirty years later, with Zeeland hatcheries leading the way, the Zeeland-Holland area was producing millions of chicks. In 1947, the Michigan Tradesman called Zeeland the chick capital of the state and reported that ten million chicks were shipped each year from forty area hatcheries, adding that the area was nationally recognized as the quality chick center of the United States. The industry’s importance also shaped Zeeland’s civic life, as the high school teams were called the Chicks, later the Chix, and an annual pageant crowned a Zeeland Chick Queen.