Updates on the Alma Powell Branch Library can be found on kpl.gov/pow

Towns

Brighton, Rix, Walker, Eassom

A short-lived railroad known as “The Fruit Belt Line” once ran between Kalamazoo and South Haven with stops in Brighton, Rix, Walker, and Eassom, places long since vanished but at one time important hubs of agricultural commerce in Kalamazoo County.

Brownell and Hopkins

The Kalamazoo & South Haven Railroad followed a northwesterly route out of Kalamazoo on the way to South Haven. But the train made a couple of additional stops in Kalamazoo County before it reached Alamo, places that have long since been forgotten.

Miller’s Station

A town called Miller was once slated to replace the village of Oshtemo as a center of commerce in western Kalamazoo County. That didn’t happen but Miller's Station did become a well-known stopping place along the Michigan Central railroad line.

Parchment

The small city of Parchment has a fascinating history that is inextricably tied to the product that gave it that name. For much of the twentieth century, the town of Parchment and the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Company grew and prospered...

Richland

The modern village of Richland is located nine miles northeast of the city of Kalamazoo at the intersection of M-89 and 32nd Street, near the center of the area known as Gull Prairie. In the early nineteenth century Gull Prairie was a large 4,400...

Schoolcraft

The recorded history of the village of Schoolcraft begins in 1828 when Bazel Harrison and his family arrived at the site of a vast round prairie with an island of timber in the middle. The site proved ideal for farming and soon the Harrisons were...

Texas Township

Texas Charter Township was established in 1838, eight years after pioneer settlement had begun. Originally part of Brady Township, its name likely derives from the national attention the state of…

Vicksburg

The community of Vicksburg is located at the southern end of Kalamazoo County, approximately 13 miles from the city of Kalamazoo. It is surrounded by numerous lakes and streams that played an important part in the village’s establishment and...

Williams Station

The community once known as Williams is now a ghost town in northwestern Kalamazoo County. Williams was a busy rail stop along the Kalamazoo & South Haven Railroad line with more than a hundred inhabitants and an abundance of commercial activity.

Yorkville

Yorkville was once a bustling pioneer town located in Ross Township, near the outlet of Gull Lake. Few identifying features have survived the bygone hamlet’s salad days as the township’s…

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