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Charles H. Hurd Building

423 West Walnut Street



Photograph by Alex Forist, April 2006.

Location: 423 W. Walnut, Kalamazoo
Survey ID: R-41
Designation: Charles H. Hurd Building: 423 W. Walnut
Date: ca. 1856
Style: Greek Revival Cottage

The following material is from the 1973 Initial Inventory of Historic Sites and Buildings in Kalamazoo and was made available for use here by the Historic Preservation Coordinator of the City of Kalamazoo. See Introduction to an Initial Inventory for details about how the survey was conducted.

Charles Hurd was 25 as he opened up his farm in Oshtemo Township in 1835–when Kalamazoo was doing the nation’s most profitable “land-office business”. For twenty years he farmed and raised a family, then moved to Kalamazoo in 1855. He bought a house and two lots on the old “Kalamazoo Literary Institute” addition and shortly opened up a meat market at the present 423 Walnut. The Kalamazoo City Directory listed him in 1878 still at the same address as a “dealer in all kinds of fresh and salt meats, poultry, game and vegetables in season”. He continued on with the market through the 1880’s, and his wife, Clorinda, survived him into the early 1890’s. Others used the structure as a market in the twentieth century, most notably Charles Wooley, who occupied the building about 1937.

The surviving structure represents the simplest of Greek Revival cottages, found all over the country in the years before the Civil War. It dates from approximately 1856 and reflects the restrained use of “classical” ornament in the wooden mouldings of the entablature, the return cornice, the temple-pitched roof, and the simple moulding beneath the windows in front.

Maps:

1861 – lot 31 vacant
1853 – lot 31 vacant
hse “Barnum” in 1853 on 42
1873 – C.H. Hurd on 42
Gibson on 31

Kalamazoo County Tax Rolls:

1850 G. Van Sickle Lot 42 Kal. Lit. Inst.   25   .60
1852 Charles Newton same   20   .40 pd 8/20/52
1853 Charles W. Barnum & hse 600 7.82
1854 same 600 7.82 (no Hurd list)
1855 C. H. Hurd Lot 31 and Hse at 600 4.02
Lot 42 “vacant” 200 1.34
1856 C. H. Hurd Lot 31 at 650 4.11
Lot 42 at 150   .95
1857 C. H. Hurd Lot 42 at 600 (house moved?)
Lot 31 at 150 (or information transposed 2004)

Kalamazoo City Directories:

1878 Charles H. Hurd, 45 Walnut, “meat market and dealer in all kinds of fresh and salt meats, poultry game and vegetables in season”; resident of Kalamazoo 22 years

U. S. Population Census Rolls:

1850 Oshtemo – Charles H. Hurd, 40, farmer, 2500, b. Conn; Phebe, 32, b. Conn.; Lucey, 13, b. Mich.; Sylvia, 11, B. Mich.; James, 7, b. Mich.
1860 Charles Hurd, 50, $1500 real, $500 personal, B. Conn.; Clorinda, 48, 400 personal, b. NY.
1880 45 Walnut – Charles Hurd, 69, meat market, b. Conn.; Clorinda, 67, wife, b. NY.; Susan McMaan, 65, single, lives about, b. Scotland

History of Kalamazoo County, 1880:

settled in Oshtemo Township, 1835

This report was converted from a typewritten document to a digital text document in September 2004. Other than punctuation and spelling corrections, and the addition of BOLD type site address and names, no changes were made. Minor formatting changes were made for use on this website, but the text was not altered. Original survey dated 1973.

Sources

Articles

  • “Built in 1856, this historic structure once a meat market”
  • Kalamazoo Gazette
  • 20 November 1974, page B4, column 1, includes photograph.

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