County note shelf
Kalamazoo County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Kalamazoo County. This shelf has 7 practical notes and 29 local stories.
36 notes
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- History and culture A dam over an eight-foot waterfall made the lake at Vicksburg's heart In 1831 John Vickers dammed an eight-foot falls on Portage Creek for a grist mill; the pond he raised became Sunset Lake, and the town that grew around it took his name.
- History and culture A lakeside ballroom once drew Chicago crowds to a Pavilion Township park On Long Lake's west shore, the Ramona Palace pulled dancers and big bands by rail from as far as Chicago through the 1930s and '40s; the site is now a Portage park.
- Outdoors Al Sabo: 25 miles of trail sitting on top of Kalamazoo's drinking water The Al Sabo Land Preserve in Texas Township is a 700-plus-acre nature area built to guard the wellfield that supplies Kalamazoo's drinking water, with 25 miles of trail laced over the wellheads.
- History and culture Climax got its name from one settler getting carried away When early settler Daniel Eldred first saw the wide prairie south of Kalamazoo he declared it 'caps the climax of everything I ever saw,' and the name Climax stuck.
- History and culture Kalamazoo County's first sawmill spun up here in 1831 Judge Caleb Eldred built the first sawmill in Kalamazoo County at Comstock in 1831, and a year later he and Horace Comstock raised the county's first grist mill on the same fast water.
- History and culture Oshtemo means 'head waters' — and there's a creek to prove it Oshtemo Township carries a Potawatomi word meaning head waters, a fitting name for the high ground where Arcadia Creek begins before flowing east into downtown Kalamazoo.
- History and culture The cereal king's lake house became a war hospital, then a campus W.K. Kellogg built his summer Manor House on the highest point over Gull Lake in 1925-26, gave it to the military in WWII, and donated the whole estate to Michigan State in 1952.
- History and culture The first settler in Kalamazoo County put down roots on a round prairie Bazel Harrison moved his family to Prairie Ronde in 1828 as the first settler in what became Kalamazoo County, drawn by an open grassland so distinct the French had named it the round prairie.
- History and culture Why a Kalamazoo County township is named after the Alamo Settlers organizing this township in 1838 named it for Davy Crockett and the men who died at the Alamo two years earlier — and gave a neighboring township the name Texas for the same reason.
- Outdoors 1,100 acres of woods that started on Halloween, 1960 North of Kalamazoo, the Kalamazoo Nature Center protects about 1,100 acres of woods and trails and keeps the 1800s DeLano family homestead alive as a working farm.
- Outdoors Fort Custer: a WWI Army camp turned 3,000-acre playground The Fort Custer Recreation Area near Augusta sits on a former World War I Army training camp; today it offers three lakes, a stretch of the Kalamazoo River, and dozens of miles of trail.
- History and culture Galesburg won its name at the ballot box in 1837 Galesburg, a small city on the Kalamazoo River between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, was named for settler George Gale after townsfolk voted down a rival proposal in 1837.
- History and culture Lincoln's only Michigan speech happened in this park On August 27, 1856, a not-yet-famous Abraham Lincoln spoke to thousands in downtown Kalamazoo's Bronson Park — the only public speech he is known to have given in Michigan.
- History and culture Parchment is a city named after a kind of paper Parchment, just north of Kalamazoo, grew up around the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Company founded in 1909 — and took the mill's product as its name.
- History and culture The castle on the hill is a water tower A 175-foot brick water tower built in 1895, crowned with castle battlements, still stands over the former Kalamazoo State Hospital east of downtown.
- Outdoors The cereal man who built a refuge for swans Cereal magnate W.K. Kellogg fenced off the land around Wintergreen Lake near Augusta in 1927 as a bird sanctuary and gave it to Michigan State, which still runs it.
- History and culture The Schoolcraft house that hid a thousand freedom seekers In Schoolcraft, the 1835 home of Dr. Nathan and Pamela Thomas was one of Michigan's busiest Underground Railroad stops, sheltering freedom seekers on their way to Canada.
- History and culture Vicksburg's rag-paper mill is getting a second life The Lee Paper Mill in Vicksburg made fine cotton-rag writing paper from 1905 until 2001 and is being reborn as a mixed-use development, The Mill at Vicksburg.
- History and culture Will Rogers called this hilltop the Acropolis of Kalamazoo County Western Michigan University began in 1903 as a small teacher-training school on Kalamazoo's Prospect Hill, whose columned first buildings drew a famous nickname.
- Cars and driving Checker Motors: the Kalamazoo plant that built America's taxicab For nearly 60 years, the boxy yellow cab that came to mean 'taxi' was built on Pitcher Street in Kalamazoo.
- History and culture Celery Flats: when Portage fed America its celery Portage's mucklands once made the Kalamazoo area America's 'Celery City,' and the Celery Flats Historical Area preserves that story amid parkland and trails.
- History and culture The Air Zoo: Portage's world-class flight museum Portage's Air Zoo — founded by WWII women pilots and now a Smithsonian affiliate — houses rare aircraft including an SR-71B Blackbird, with rides and exhibits kids adore.
- History and culture America's First 'Walking Mall' Was a Michigan Experiment Kalamazoo opened America's first outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in 1959 — designed, ironically, by the inventor of the enclosed mall.
- History and culture One Michigan City Quietly Promised to Pay for Every Kid's College — and Won't Say Who's Funding It On November 10, 2005, anonymous donors created the Kalamazoo Promise — paying up to full college tuition for every Kalamazoo Public Schools graduate, with no income or grade requirement — and they're still anonymous.
- History and culture The Gibson Guitar Was Born in Kalamazoo, Not Nashville The Gibson guitar wasn't born in Nashville — it was built in Kalamazoo for nearly eighty years, and a successor shop still makes guitars by hand in the original factory.
- History and culture The Most Degreed Person in Modern History Is a Kalamazoo Man Who Just Kept Going to School Michael Nicholson of Kalamazoo holds the unofficial record for the most earned college degrees — about thirty — and did it for the love of learning.
- History and culture "Beer City, USA" Is in Michigan — and the Best Beer in America Has a Fish on the Label Grand Rapids is "Beer City, USA," and Bell's Two Hearted Ale was voted the best beer in America four years running.
- History and culture The Pill That Actually Dissolves Was Perfected in Kalamazoo Kalamazoo's Dr. William Upjohn cracked the pill that reliably dissolves, patenting his 'friable' pill in 1885 and founding the Upjohn Company in 1886.
- Rules and licenses Renting out a home? Your city may make you register it and pass an inspection Many Michigan cities require rental homes to be registered and inspected before a tenant can legally move in.
- Cars and driving Parking overnight in west Michigan? Watch the winter street rules Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo handle overnight winter street parking differently, and nearby cities set their own local rules.
- Outdoors The Kal-Haven Trail The Kal-Haven Trail is a 34-mile rail-trail between Kalamazoo and South Haven, with Bloomingdale at its midpoint.
- Cars and driving Good news on car insurance: west Michigan is the cheap end of an expensive state Michigan car insurance is expensive, but Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo-area drivers are usually on the lower-cost end of the state.
- History and culture Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo (and it gives kids free college) Kalamazoo County built America's first pedestrian mall in 1959 and, since 2005, sends its public-school graduates to college on the anonymous donors of the Kalamazoo Promise.
- Rules and licenses Can you run an Airbnb here? Your city or township decides Michigan leaves short-term rental rules to each city or township, so Airbnb and Vrbo rules can change from one community to the next.
- Money and taxes Buying in a township? Watch for special assessments on top of your taxes Michigan township buyers should check for special assessments that can add separate road, sewer, water, lighting, sidewalk, or drain charges.
- Money and taxes In Michigan, you get two property-tax bills a year — not one Most Michigan property owners get separate summer and winter tax bills, with local rules deciding what lands on each bill.