Kalamazoo is the largest city in the southwestern region of the US state of Michigan. The city has about 73,598 residents (as of 2020) and is the administrative center of Kalamazoo County. Together with the city of Portage, it forms the Kalamazoo-Portage metropolitan area.
The city's name derives from the nearby Kalamazoo River, which
empties into Lake Michigan. To this day, however, it is unclear where
the river itself got its name from; however, it is thought to derive
from the language of the Potawatomi or Ottawa people who inhabited the
region before European settlers. Most of the city lies on the south-west
bank of the river in a loop, with a small part (about 7.3 km²) on the
opposite bank. According to the US Census Bureau, the city has an area
of 65.03 km².
The oddness of this name, especially to
Anglo-American ears, has helped it become a figurative term for an
exotic place or location in American popular culture. The idiom "from
Timbuktu to Kalamazoo" commonly used in the USA corresponds in German to
something like: "from white-the-cuckoo to I-forgot". For this reason,
many pieces of music appear to refer to the name of the city, but the
lyrics actually mean "somewhere", as directly in "I've Been Everywhere"
by Geoff Mack.
A guitar model from Gibson Guitar Corporation has
also been named after the city in which today's company has its origins.
The Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Down on the Corner" also
references the city.
Today, Kalamazoo sells t-shirts that say
"Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo."
The current urban area originally belonged to the homeland of the
Hopewell culture. A mound in Bronson Park still bears witness to this
settlement. The Hopewell Civilization began to unravel as early as the
8th century; Pottawatomi Indians lived there at the time the first
European settlers arrived in the region. Traders frequented the region
in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and a regular trading post
existed there from about 1820. During the War of 1812, the British
opened a forge and prison camp there.
The Chicago Convention of
1821 stipulated that all territory south of the Grand River should
belong to the United States. However, the area around Kalamazoo was
initially reserved for the people of the Pottawatomi chief
Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish until 1827, when it finally fell to the USA as
well. Finally, in 1829, Titus Bronson was the first white settler to
build a shack in what is now the urban area. Bronson initially named the
town after himself, but after he was found guilty of stealing a cherry
tree in 1836, it was renamed Kalamazoo. Nevertheless, today both a park
and a hospital are named after the city's founder.
Kalamazoo was
registered as a village in 1838 and as a town in 1893.
On August
27, 1856, Abraham Lincoln spoke during a convention of the newly formed
Republican Party in Bronson Park to support John C. Fremont's candidacy
for US President and the first Republican nominee; it was Lincoln's only
public appearance in Michigan.
In 1959, Kalamazoo Mall became
America's first pedestrian mall by closing a section of Burdick Street
to cars. The shopping zone was designed by Victor Gruen.
An F3
category tornado struck Kalamazoo on May 13, 1980.
Traffic
Kalamazoo is located off Interstate 94, the U.S. Highway
131 and Michigan Highways M-43 and M-96.
Kalamazoo has a
long-distance train station. The train company Amtrak connects Kalamazoo
non-stop with Ann Arbor, Chicago, Detroit and Holland, among others.
The city is connected to the national intercity bus system via
Greyhound. There are direct connections to the north of Michigan (Grand
Rapids, Petoskey, Traverse City, St. Ignace).
At the south end of
town is Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport. American Airlines,
Delta and United Airlines fly to Midwest destinations from here,
currently Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis.
The city has a city
bus network provided by Kalamazoo Metro Transit. 19 routes connect all
of Kalamazoo's neighborhoods and Portage to downtown Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo
College. The latter is one of Michigan's oldest schools and is
considered a pioneer in the field of co-education. In 2005, it was
ranked number one in Peace Corps recruitment.
There is also
Kalamazoo Valley Community College and Davenport University. Nazareth
College also existed until 1992.
Kalamazoo is the seat of the Diocese of Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo has long been known as "Paper Town" because papermaking was
Kalamazoo's leading industry from the 1860's through the mid-20th
century. Kalamazoo had access to Michigan's forests, river water,
several paper mills that made the Kalamazoo Valley one of the world's
best-known papermaking centers, and a constant influx of immigrant
workers. Huge companies such as the Kalamazoo Paper Company (1867), the
Bryant Paper Company (1895) and the King Paper Company (1901) emerged.
Numerous paper mills sprang up in the surrounding towns and new places
like Parchment grew up around a paper mill. In 1954 the paper industry
generated a third of the turnover of all companies in Kalamazoo. Since
the 1970s, the paper industry in Kalamazoo has steadily declined. Almost
all paper manufacturers had to close and the factories were demolished.
The only thing left is the world's only paper engineering chair at
Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.
In the early 1900s,
Kalamazoo had a number of automobile manufacturers, including Barley,
Blood Brothers Auto, Burtt, Handley, Michigan Automobile Company, and
Checker Motors Corporation. Checker made the famous yellow Checker Cabs
(with the black and white checkered stripes), but also produced metal
parts for car manufacturers, most notably General Motors. The company
went bankrupt in 2009.
Today, the largest employers are: Pfizer,
Bronson Hospital, National City Bank, Western Michigan University,
Borgess Health Alliance, Meijer, the public schools of Kalamazoo and
neighboring Portage, Stryker Corporation, and Kalamazoo Valley Community
College.
The company Stryker Corporation has, among other things,
its headquarters in the city.
The pharmaceutical company The
Upjohn Company, which previously existed there, was first merged with
the Swedish Pharmacia in 1985 and finally taken over by Pfizer in 2002.
In 1932 the company became the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment
Research, which still exists today.
One of the world's largest
manufacturers of guitars, the Gibson Guitar Corporation, was founded in
Kalamazoo. When the company moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1985, a few
former employees at the old Gibson factory continued the handcrafted
production under the Heritage Guitar name. The products are very popular
among guitarists.
There are around a dozen breweries. By far the largest brewery is
Bell's Brewery, which was founded in 1983 as the "Kalamazoo Brewing
Company" by Larry Bell. Bell's Brewery is the seventh largest craft
brewery in the United States and number 15 overall. Their most famous
brands are Oberon and 2 Hearted. In addition to its original downtown
location, which includes the Eccentric Café, the brewery operates a
large manufacturing facility in nearby Comstock.
Other local
microbreweries include Boatyard Brewing, Bravo! Restaurant, Gonzo's
BigDogg Brewery, Olde Peninsula Brewpub, One Well Brewing, Rupert's
Brewhouse and Tibb's Brewing Company. In 2014, Battle Creek-based
Arcadia Brewing Company opened a new brewhouse and restaurant.
In
recent years, two events have evolved around the growing craft beer
industry, the annual Kalamazoo Beer Week in January and the Kalamazoo On
Tap Craft Beer Festival in May.
In 2015 the Craft Beer Trail was
launched, with a passport to collect stamps. In 2016, a shuttle bus
between some breweries and a distillery (Kalamazoo Brew Bus) and a beer
bike service started.
Arthur Brown (1843–1906), politician
Melville Best Anderson
(1851–1933), Romanist, Italianist and Anglicist
Elia W. Peattie
(1862–1935), author and journalist
Edna Ferber (1885–1968), American
writer of Hungarian descent
William Francis Murphy (1885–1950), Roman
Catholic Bishop of Saginaw
Louis Brock (1892–1971), film producer,
film director and screenwriter
Frederick Weber (1905–1994), Modern
pentathlete and fencer
Stephen Dunwell (1913–1994), computer engineer
Paul H Todd (1921–2008), politician
Norman Shumway (1923–2006),
cardiologist and surgeon, pioneer of modern heart transplantation
John Briley (1925–2019), screenwriter and film producer
Donald J.
Bruggink (born 1929), Reformed theologian
James Stephen Sullivan
(1929–2006), Roman Catholic Bishop of Fargo
James C. Lewis (born
1936), biologist, ecologist and conservationist
Robert Lynn Carroll
(1938–2020), specialist in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and
reptiles
John Woollam (born 1939), physicist and electrical engineer
Michael C. Reed (born 1942), mathematician
Harold Reitsema (born
1948), astronomer
Allan C. Spradling (born 1949), geneticist
Bill
Hybels (born 1951), founder and pastor of Willow Creek Church in South
Barrington
Narada Michael Walden (born 1952), producer, drummer,
singer and songwriter
Lee Percy (born 1953), film editor
Nisi
Shawl (born 1955), science fiction and fantasy writer
Don Dailey
(1956–2013), computer chess programmer
Polly Horvath (born 1957),
author of children's and young adult books
Sherry Acker (born 1959),
tennis player
Terry Rossio (born 1960), screenwriter
David Means
(born 1961), writer
Eric Fanning (born 1968), US Department of
Defense Chief of Staff
Joseph McGinty McG Nichol (born 1968), film
producer and director
Jeffrey A. Wilson (born 1969), paleontologist
Danny Lewis (born 1970), NBA basketball player
Teju Cole (born 1975),
writer
Katie Schlukebir (born 1975), tennis player
Huma Abedin
(born 1976), political adviser
Anne E. Carpenter (born 1976),
scientist
Kip Carpenter (born 1979), speed skater specializing in
short track
Adam Hall (born 1980), ice hockey player
Alex
Koroknay-Palicz (born 1981), youth rights activist
Greg Jennings
(born 1983), NFL American football player
Scott Parse (born 1984),
ice hockey player
Shannon Kane (born 1986), actress and model
Scott Oudsema (born 1986), tennis player
Seth Troxler (born c. 1986),
techno DJ and producer
Cathy Reed (born 1987), American-Japanese
figure skater
Chris Reed (1989–2020), figure skater
Jordyn Jones
(born 2000), singer and actress
Ozan Baris (born 2004), tennis player