The sixty-foot frieze, The Legend of Grand Rapids, illustrates the history of Grand Rapids from its earliest beginnings through 1976. The work begins on the far left with a primeval forest in which Native Americans are paddling a canoe. The coming of Europeans to the area is marked by a Jesuit missionary, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac arriving in a boat, and Henry H. Schoolcraft exploring the territory with a native guide. Early Grand Rapids settlers Louis Campau, who set up a trading post on the banks of the Grand River, and the surveyor John Ball are depicted. Industries which flourished in Grand Rapids follow and include lumbering, milling, blacksmithing, furniture making, transportation, and farming. The right side of the relief portrays dance, music, athletics, and education.

Grand Rapids Community College alumnus, Lumen Martin Winter was commissioned by the Grand Rapids Board of Education to produce this work for the exterior of the Gerald R. Ford Health and Education Center for its dedication in 1976. While creating The Legend of Grand Rapids, Winter included the talent of students from the Junior College who joined him in Italy to carve the work from slabs of marble. Lumen left Grand Rapids, the home of his youth, to study at the Cleveland School of Art, and at the National Academy of Design and the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. He was known internationally as a muralist, sculptor, and painter.