More than 1. According to the Detroit Democratic Free Press newspaper: "We are informed that the village of Kalamazoo is literally thronged with purchasers. The public and private houses are full and. In , a group of religious refugees from The Netherlands settled in Kalamazoo at the same time a Scotsman named James Taylor was experimenting with celery seeds imported from England. Taylor could not convince the townsfolk of the joys of eating celery they thought it was poisonous.
His experiment languished for 10 years until a Dutchman named Cornelius De Bruin began to cultivate celery in the rich black muck along the Kalamazoo River.
The De Bruin children sold the celery door to door. Before long, the celery fields of "Celery City" were flourishing and it was not uncommon to see Kalamazoo peddlers selling celery on the streets of the little town.
With their marshes proving so profitable, civic leaders turned their attention to advertising the city's water resources to potential investors in a paper mill. In , Kalamazoo Paper was established, just the first of many companies that would make Kalamazoo a paper mill center.
Soon other industries were attracted to the town, which was strategically located between Detroit and Chicago. One early entrepreneur was William Erastus Upjohn, who graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in and opened up a private practice and a pharmaceutical laboratory in Kalamazoo. He developed a process for making pills and granules that resulted in in the Upjohn Pill and Granule Company.
More industries followed at the end of the nineteenth century, and Kalamazoo was turning out stoves, essential oils, and iron and allied products. I continued to occupy the place by different clerks until when I closed up my Indian trade. The first to erect a cabin on the present site of Kalamazoo city, not the county was Titus Bronson, a native of Connecticut, and a hardy pioneer, who arrived in June, This was soon after Orange Risdom, deputy U.
Bronson built a cabin of tamarack poles and grass, 12 feet wide and 14 feet long, on Kalamazoo Avenue west of Westnedge Avenue near Arcadia Creek, which then flowed about feet north of the present artificial channel.
The Kalamazoo River was key to development of Kalamazoo County and was described as follows in the Michigan Gazetteer:. The whole length is nearly miles, and the width near its mouth is between and feet. It is navigable for boats of 50 tons in all stages to Allegan, a distance of 38 miles. The region through which it flows is nearly level, and the soil is generally fertile.
Molded by the melting of the mile-high glaciers the Kalamazoo River Valley comprises one of Michigan's most significant drainage basins. The river originates in Hillsdale County and from the junction of its two main branches near Albion to its mouth on Lake Michigan it drops feet while meandering miles through Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Allegan Counties. Know variously on early maps as the Muramek, Maramee and Reccanamazoo, by the early 19th century the river came to be called Kalamazoo, a derivation of an Algonquian phrase meaning "boiling pot.
A watery high of the Potawatomi, the Kalamazoo River beckoned to pioneers who soon dotted its length with frontier settlements. Its waters powered early industry and floated rafts of flour and logs to markets. Many generations fished its depths, harvested mussels that lined its bottom and enjoyed its scenic grandeur. By the s eleven electric-generating dams harnessed its flow.
American Indians harvested vast fields of wild rice near the mouth of the Kalamazoo and drank its crystal waters. But by the mid s the river served as a drain for industrial pollutants and urban sewage. Industrial contaminates emerged as a public concern in and a citizen-government partnership began working to return the river to its natural state.
Kalamazoo County crosses two watersheds, the Kalamazoo River and St. Joseph River watersheds. Although the St. Joseph River itself does not flow through the county, it drains the southern half of it. Joseph watersheds. The St. Joseph map only shows the Michigan portion of the St. Joseph water shed; the St. Joseph river flows into northern Indiana. Joseph watershed includes the lakes in city of Portage and much of the area south of Centre Street.
Since prehistoric time people and trade have regularly crossed the two watersheds. Portage Creek and the Portage Trail, the Indian trail that became Portage Road, facilitated the connections between the watersheds.
Vickery followed the trail south into the county and dammed Portage Creek. Then he used some small millstones he had brought from Indiana to creek to build the first mill in the county - see Vicksburg MI History Site. Joseph watershed, traditional home of the Pottawatomie, has played an important part in the history of Kalamazoo County and Southwestern Michigan.
The following is based on a history of the St. Joseph River. Joseph River like other geographic features in southwest Michigan was formed as the glaciers retreated years ago.
Evidence suggests the first people to visit the region were small bands of hunters. Settlements were established along the St. Joseph from to BC. About 2, BC. Many mounds existed throughout the Saint Joseph River valley and the artifacts found in the mounds suggest that these people traveled and traded extensively throughout this continent.
The city created the mall in by closing part of Burdick Street to auto traffic, although two of the mall's four blocks have been reopened to auto traffic since Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University , a large public university, Kalamazoo College, a liberal arts school, and Kalamazoo Valley Community College, a two-year community college.
Originally known as Bronson after founder Titus Bronson in the township of Arcadia, the names of both the city and the township were changed to "Kalamazoo" in and , respectively. The Kalamazoo name comes from a Potawatomi word, first found in a British report in However, the Kalamazoo River , which passes through the modern city of Kalamazoo, was located on the route between Detroit and Fort Saint-Joseph nowadays Niles, Michigan.
French-Canadian traders, missionaries, and military personnel were quite familiar with this area during the French era and thereafter. The name "Kikanamaso" was also recorded by Father Pierre Potier, a Jesuit missionary for the Huron-Wendats at the Assumption mission south shore of Detroit , while en route to Fort Saint-Joseph during the fall of Legend has it that "Ki-ka-ma-sung," meaning "boiling water," referring to a footrace held each fall by local Native Americans, who had to run to the river and back before the pot boiled.
Still another theory is that it means "the mirage or reflecting river. The name was also given to the river that flows almost all the way across the state. The name Kalamazoo, which sounds unusual to English-speaking ears, has become a metonym for exotic places, as in the phrase "from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo. The area on which the modern city of Kalamazoo stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture , who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium.
Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to decline after the 8th century and was replaced by other groups.
The Potawatomi culture lived in the area when the first European explorers arrived. The first Europeans to reside in the area were itinerant fur traders in the late 18th and early 19th century. There are records of several traders wintering in the area, and by the s at least one trading post had been established.
During the War of , the British established a smithy and a prison camp in the area. Six years later, as a result of the Treaty of St. Joseph , the tract that became the city of Kalamazoo was also ceded. In , Titus Bronson, originally from Connecticut , became the first white settler to build a cabin within the present city limits of Kalamazoo. He platted the town in and named it the village of Bronson—not to be confused with the much smaller Bronson, Michigan , about fifty miles 80 km to the south-southeast of Kalamazoo.
Bronson, frequently described as "eccentric" and argumentative, was later run out of town. The village was renamed Kalamazoo in , due in part to Bronson's being fined for stealing a cherry tree. Today, a hospital and a downtown park, among other things, are named for Bronson.
Kalamazoo was legally incorporated as a village in and as a city in The fertile farmlands attracted prosperous Yankee farmers who settled the surrounding area, and sent their sons to Kalamazoo to become businessmen, professionals and entrepreneurs who started numerous factories. In , the city created the Kalamazoo Mall, the first outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in the United States, by closing part of Burdick Street to auto traffic.
The Mall was designed by Victor Gruen , who also designed the country's first enclosed shopping mall , which had opened three years earlier. Two of the mall's four blocks were reopened to auto traffic in after much debate. An F3 tornado struck downtown Kalamazoo on May 13, , killing five and injuring On February 20, , Kalamazoo became the site of a random series of shootings in which six people were killed.
A prime suspect was apprehended by police without incident. In the past, Kalamazoo was known for its production of windmills , mandolins , buggies, automobiles , cigars , stoves , paper , and paper products. Agriculturally, it once was noted for celery. Although much of it has become suburbanized, the surrounding area still produces farm crops, primarily corn and soybeans.
Kalamazoo was the original home of Gibson Guitar Corporation, which spawned the still-local Heritage Guitars. The company was incorporated as "Gibson Mandolin - Guitar Co. Some workers from the original factory stayed in Kalamazoo to create the Heritage Guitar company.
Kalamazoo was once known as the "Paper City" because of the paper mills in and near the city. The Allied Paper Corporation operated several mills and employed 1, people in Kalamazoo during the late s.
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