Cereal bowls and time capsules: Calhoun County's two famous towns
Calhoun County gave America its breakfast — the Kellogg story began in Battle Creek — and preserves one of the country's finest 19th-century towns in Marshall.
Calhoun County changed what America eats for breakfast. In Battle Creek, the Sanitarium kitchen’s work with flaked wheat helped launch the modern ready-to-eat cereal industry. C.W. Post and W.K. Kellogg built separate businesses, and the city says more than 80 cereal companies existed in some form during the early-1900s boom. That is why Battle Creek still calls itself Cereal City. Its annual Cereal Fest keeps the historic “World’s Longest Breakfast Table” name, though today’s tables are set out separately rather than joined in one long row.
Twelve miles east sits the county’s other marvel: Marshall. Its 325-acre National Historic Landmark district was designated in 1991 and includes nearly 800 contributing buildings. The draws include house museums, the Hawaiian-inspired Honolulu House, the annual home tour, and a fountain-circled downtown. It’s also home to Schuler’s, the century-old restaurant half of Michigan was taken to as a kid. Breakfast history on one end, an architectural time capsule on the other: Calhoun packs a lot of America into one county.