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| Kalamazoo Apartment Locator Services : Kalamazoo Apartments |  | Contents | |
| History |
The city of Kalamazoo began as a gift to the United
States. The land which today is Kalamazoo served as a fur trading
post in the late 1700s. The area was deeded to the U.S. by the
Potawatomi Indians in 1827, and in 1829 permanent settlers began
arriving, led by Titus Bronson. When the town was platted in
1831, it was called "Bronson" after its leader. But
Bronson was considered an eccentric and argumentative man, and
two years after founding the village and naming it after himself,
he was accused, tried, and convicted of stealing a cherry tree.
Villagers petitioned for a name change, so by the time Michigan
was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, Bronson had been
renamed Kalamazoo.
The name is derived from a Potawatomi Indian expression, "Kikalamazoo,"
meaning "the rapids at the river crossing," or "boiling
water." Intrigued by the name, many poets, authors and
songwriters have penned Kalamazoo into their works, the most
notable of which may be Glenn Miller's I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.
In the early 1900s, three ships were also christened Kalamazoo.
Historically, the city has been referred to by many names. It's
been called "The Paper City," for its many paper and
cardboard mills; "The Celery City," after the crop
once grown in the muck fields north, south, and east of town;
and "The Mall City," after construction of the first
outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in the United States in 1959.
The fertile soil on which Kalamazoo is built has led the area
to most recently be called the "Bedding Plant Capital of
the World," as the county is home to the largest bedding
plant cooperative in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of plants,
many varieties of which are displayed throughout the county's
parks and boulevards, are sold each year to home gardeners and
landscapers nationwide.
Kalamazoo was once the manufacturing domain for Checker cabs,
Gibson guitars , Kalamazoo stoves, Shakespeare fishing rods
and reels, and the Roamer automobile. Parchment paper, made
from vegetable byproducts, gave the city of Parchment in Kalamazoo
County its name. In 1885, a physician from Hastings, Michigan,
invented a pill making machine and developed the first readily
dissolvable pill. William Erastus Upjohn moved to Kalamazoo
to seek his business future and started the Upjohn Pill and
Granule Company, now called Pharmacia Corporation, a Fortune
500 company and worldwide leader in pharmaceuticals.
The area's cities, Kalamazoo and Marshall in particular have
many areas designated as historic districts. Notable examples
of Gothic, Italianate, Greek Revival, Sullivanesque, Queen Anne,
Art Deco and other architectural styles accent their stately
old avenues, providing a glimpse of restored grandeur from the
previous century. Frank Lloyd Wright also found Kalamazoo quite
right for his "Usonian"style of homes, built here
during the late 1940s. Many of his designs are found in and
around Kalamazoo.
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