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Local History

Business

St. John Plow Works

By the 1880s, significant advancements had been made in farm implement design and manufacturing. Labor-saving devices like plows and cultivators revolutionized farming and created a host of opportunities for Kalamazoo’s inventors and manufacturers.

Nichols Family Dairy

During the 1840s, brothers James, Ezra, and Sabin Nichols moved their families from New England to Kalamazoo, where they established one of the earliest commercial dairy farms in the area. Their family business carried on over three generations.

North Burdick Grocery and Market

Established in 1949, the North Burdick Grocery and Market (1907 N. Burdick) was the first African American-owned and operated business in Kalamazoo.

Oakland Pharmacy, Boogie Records, Rupert's Brew House

Whether by design, by location, or perhaps by pure chance, certain commercial structures are destined to become lifelong places where people like to congregate, regardless of the type of business within. From its origins as Oakland Pharmacy, a...

Paper Industry

Kalamazoo has held many titles over the years including The Celery City, The Mall City, and The Bedding Plant Capital of the World. It could be argued, however, that the most significant moniker in the history of Kalamazoo was ‘The Paper City.’ The..

Pioneer Attorneys

Despite there being “no great need for lawyers in frontier Bronson,” two New Englanders educated and trained as attorneys came to Kalamazoo County.

Saloon Row

In 1911, Kalamazoo mayor Charles Farrell launched an effort to “clean up” the first block of East Main Street between Burdick and Portage streets, the city's center and long-established commerce hub that had come to be known as “Saloon Row.”

Shakespeare Company

The Shakespeare Company has been a leading manufacturer and supplier of fishing equipment and other sporting goods since it was founded in Kalamazoo in 1897 by William Shakespeare Jr. This followed his original patent in 1896 of the level winding...

Sound Machine Studios / Bryce Roberson

For a dozen years, Bryce Roberson worked as a musician and sound engineer for Chess Records in Chicago. He later moved to Kalamazoo and established Uncle Dirty’s Sound Machine Studios, where he recorded many of West Michigan’s best-known musicians.

Stalking the Celery City

In an ice age long ago, a glacier ground its way slowly south in Michigan and stopped just north of Kalamazoo County. In front of it stretched vast flood plains of black, loamy muck that lay over water-impervious clay. The glacier retreated...

Star Brass Works

Nationally known manufacturers of the “Kalamazoo Long Distance Trolley Wheel,” a device used to connect streetcars to the overhead electrical lines, and tone rings for Gibson’s popular prewar Mastertone banjos.

Strait Manufacturing Company

During the 1860s, Ransom E. Strait, a windmill maker and inventor from New York, formed the Strait Wind Mill Company in Galesburg. His son Lacelle Strait later organized a brass foundry in Kalamazoo called the Strait Manufacturing Company.

Systech

If you were a musician during the 1970s, you might have encountered some of the nifty effects devices made by a small but vital Kalamazoo-based manufacturing firm called Systems & Technology in Music, Inc., better known as Systech.

The Dawn of the Telephone

Victorian Kalamazoo saw the advent and growth of many new technologies, with the development of phone service being one of the most important civic changes. The Bell Telephone Company had…

Tully Scott’s Popcorn Wagon

During the years between the two World Wars, a sure sign that springtime had arrived in Kalamazoo was the appearance of Tully Scott’s bright red popcorn wagon on city streets.…

Union Nurseries (L.G. Bragg & Co.)

During the 1860s, an enterprising grower from Paw Paw named Leonard Bragg established a prosperous nursery business along Asylum Road south of the village. Bragg’s Union Nurseries employed hundreds and grew to be among the oldest and largest fruit...

Vander Horst, Henry L.

Henry L. Vander Horst One could easily make the claim for Henry L. Vander Horst being Kalamazoo’s most important 20th century contractor. For half a century, all four corners of…

William E. Hill & Hammond Machinery

With roots in the lumber and mining industries, a small manufacturer of sawmill machinery has grown to become a Kalamazoo-based world leader in industrial fixed abrasive finishing.

Windmill Industry in Kalamazoo

The production of windmills in Kalamazoo began in 1867. Within a few years Kalamazoo became one of three cities in the country to manufacture some of the best-known windmills on…