Kalamazoo County Courthouses

Two Centuries of County Court Services

Court House Square

In a March 1831 letter to the governor of Michigan referencing the “Plat of the Town of Brunson[sic],” Kalamazoo County register of deeds Isaac Sumner defined dimensions for four public squares (he called them “publick[sic] donations”) along Main Street near the center of the village: “Publick[sic] Square or Court House Square,” “Academy Square,” “Jail Square,” and “Church Square.”

Kalamazoo County Court

When Kalamazoo County was organized in July 1830, the court met for the first time in the log cabin home of Titus Bronson. Six months later Bronson Village (Kalamazoo) was named as the county seat. The county court initially gathered at the home of Abram J. Shaver on the west side of Prairie Ronde, but then returned to Bronson Village for subsequent terms.

Bronson Village was renamed Kalamazoo in 1836, and the county was authorized to borrow $6,000 for the construction of a new courthouse and jail. During the years that followed, Kalamazooans would see three different courthouse buildings rise up on Court House Square before December 2023, when the courts were moved to the Judge Charles A. Pratt Justice Center on Eleanor Street.

Kalamazoo’s First County Building (1838-1885)

Kalamazoo’s first county courthouse was a two-story clapboard structure designed by Ammi Burnham Young (1798-1874), a highly regarded builder and designer of churches and courthouses from Burlington, Vermont. Construction began in 1838 under contractor Justice Burdick and builder E.R. Ball, who put the finishing touches on the building in the early months of 1839.

The old courthouse received an extensive $8,000 makeover in 1866 by Kalamazoo builders Frederick Bush and Thomas Paterson. The building was moved some 24 feet to the south to make way for a new addition and front entrance facing Main Street. Outcroppings on the east and west sides of the building added much needed room and character. The newly created space inside would serve as a town hall, while the courtroom and other offices were enlarged and remodeled. A new county jail building, the community’s third, was erected directly south of the courthouse in 1868.

Kalamazoo, then the largest village in the United States, was incorporated as a city in April 1884. Allen Potter was elected as Kalamazoo’s first mayor, the city’s first streetcar lines were opened, and a new courthouse was erected to replace the aging older structure.

Second Courthouse (1885-1936)

Kalamazoo’s second courthouse was designed by renowned Toledo architect and designer Edward Oscar Fallis (1851-1927) and built by the Toledo-based firm of Miles, Cramer, & Horn at a cost of $60,000. The existing courthouse was moved temporarily to the back of the property and several large trees were removed to make way for the new structure. Construction was soon underway and by June 1884, the cornerstone was in place.

“A fine job”

Many were put off because Miles, Cramer, & Horn had chosen to work with a construction firm from Ohio instead of a Kalamazoo company. The architects reassured concerned Kalamazooans that as much of the work as possible would be done by local labor, and to a certain extent, that does appear to have been the case.

The work was overseen by Pavilion Township resident William J. Kirby, who served as construction superintendent. John & William Doyle of Kalamazoo built the stone foundation and the basement floor, while Kalamazooans Garrett Slater & Augustus Menard did a “fine job” (Gazette) with the brick and stonework using sandstone shipped in from a quarry in Stony Point, Michigan, along the western shore of Lake Erie. The cornerstone was manufactured in Kalamazoo by the Winslow & Crooks Marble and Granite Works.

“Thos. Dorgan’s men were engaged yesterday in putting in the gas fixtures at the court house. The large chandelier in the circuit court room was swung into its  place without accident or damage, just before noon. While there is nothing of gorgeousness or oriental magnificent in this chandelier, it makes with its many pendants and prisms a handsome appearance when lighted, and is of a size well adapted to illumine the large apartment in which it is placed. It had sixty gas jets and is provided with the usual arrangement for lighting the gas by electricity.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 16 October 1885

Charles H. Dutton & Co. from Kalamazoo installed the 14-foot boiler, while local plumber Thomas Dorgan connected piping to heat the building and installed gas lines and fixtures for lighting. Kalamazooan John McGoff did the plastering, Jonathan Parsons & Henry Wood of Kalamazoo installed the fireplace grates and slate mantles, while J.C. Fullerton, a master carpenter from Charlotte, was contracted to do the interior woodwork. Bookcases in the law library, courtroom desks, and railings of polished cherry were crafted by Kalamazoo builder William Ritchie. Courtroom tables, jury chairs, and opera chairs were purchased from Thomas Kane & Co. of Chicago, while local furniture dealer Horace Prentice provided desks and tables for the supervisor’s room. The 10-foot galvanized metal statue of Lady Justice atop the dome was manufactured by the W.H. Mullins Company of Salem, Ohio. Her face was said to be molded “after that of a prominent Kalamazoo belle” (Gazette).

Workers from the United States Encaustic Tile Company of Indianapolis installed the intricate corridor tilework. Rugs were purchased from William B. Clark & Son’s dry goods store on Main Street, while Mannes Israel & Co. of Kalamazoo provided carpeting from Wilton’s in England. Once the horse stables and construction debris had been removed, Charles McCarthy from Kalamazoo took care of grading and sodding the exterior grounds. The new building was complete and ready for occupation by the end of 1885 at a final cost of $60,176.81 (close to $2 million in today’s dollars).

“That figure of Justice on the cupola of the court house attracted considerable attention yesterday. It is the general remark among our people that they are surprised that so fine a building could be built for the money.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 24 May 1885

“The Old Court House Block”

Meanwhile, rather than demolish the old courthouse the county chose to put it up for sale. In August 1885, the building was sold to Col. Stephen H. Wattles for $150. In November, Allegan County contractor M.D. Smith & Co. moved the building to a vacant lot on West Water Street, where it was given a new roof and brick exterior, and used as a tenement house and commercial property for several decades.

Michigan Avenue Courthouse (1936-2023)

The country was in the early stages of the Great Depression following the Wall Street crash of 1929, but that didn’t stop Kalamazooans from looking ahead to the future. In March 1930, the city commission hired Jacob L. Crane, Jr. (1892–1988), a city planner from Chicago, to compile a City Plan Survey, which put forth a bold vision for Kalamazoo’s future. Crane’s “exhaustive” 40-page report called for several major projects based on an anticipated city population of 140,000 by the year 1960, including a proposed Civic Center around the Bronson Park corridor. A key portion of this proposal would include a new county building to replace the existing 1884 courthouse and 1868 jail.

After 45 years of use, Kalamazoo’s courthouse was considered outdated. County records were being stored in damp basement vaults, which were said to be “unsafe, overcrowded, and obsolete,” while the upstairs courtrooms and jury rooms were seen as “a veritable fire trap.” Far worse was the existing jail building, which dated from the 1860s. It was seen as a “decrepit, unsanitary structure” that had “been condemned several times by state authorities” (Gazette).

Based on the City Plan Survey, city leaders put forth a proposal to replace the existing courthouse and jail with a single combined facility. Plans were drawn up and a funding proposal for such a project was put before the voters in April 1931, but the proposal failed by some 4,000 votes. Given the economic conditions at the time, voters couldn’t justify the expense.

Unbowed by the lack of voter confidence, the Kalamazoo County board of supervisors went ahead and hired Kalamazoo architects Rockwell A. LeRoy and Manuel Newlander to prepare initial sketches and estimates for a combined jail and courthouse. LeRoy and Newlander presented their proposed six-story, $600,000 combined facility to the board of supervisors in October, emphasizing that it would cost less to build the building at that time “than at any time in the next generation.” As the Depression wore on, however, plans to replace the courthouse and jail were “deferred until a more opportune time” (Gazette).

Public Works Administration

In June 1933, the federal government created the Public Works Administration (PWA) to help reduce unemployment and bolster the economy by allocating funds for the construction of highways and public buildings. The county board of supervisors voted to apply for assistance, and the federal government responded with a $730,900 appropriation for the construction of a combined courthouse and jail in Kalamazoo. After taxpayers narrowly approved a $206,000 bond proposal in September, the project was allowed to move forward.

Architects LeRoy and Newlander were not chosen for the final project. Instead, Kalamazoo architect Milton C.J. Billingham and the Detroit firm of Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls, Inc., were awarded the contract in December 1934, and within a few weeks, their plans had been submitted. The building’s architectural motif would be a stylish PWA Moderne, designed to harmonize with the recently constructed city hall.

The old courthouse was vacated in June 1935 so the Advance Wrecking and Lumber Company from Chicago could begin to remove the old structure. The cornerstone from the old building was opened during a ceremony on July 4th, and on July 25th, Lady Justice was lowered from her post atop the building. (The statue now resides in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s collection.) By August, demolition was well underway when disaster struck the worksite as a portion of the upper floor collapsed, killing two local workers and injuring two others. Since both men were WWI veterans who saw active duty overseas, the V.F.W. took charge of the funeral proceedings.

The Orville F. Miller Company (forerunner of the Miller Lumber Company and Miller-Davis) was employed as the general contractor. Construction work began in January 1936 and by the end of February the new concrete footings were in place. Buff colored Mankato limestone with a dark granite base was chosen to cover the five-story reinforced concrete structure. State and county seals appeared on both sides of the building, while figures representing justice, law, and vigilance were among several reliefs carved by the celebrated architectural sculptor Corrado Giuseppe Parducci (1900-1981).

In May, a committee was appointed to determine the contents of the new cornerstone. Among the items chosen were the original box and its contents from the cornerstone of the 1884 building, a lock and key from the previous jail buildings, along with various newspaper clippings, and an abstract of title for the courthouse square. The cornerstone was sealed and set in place in August. Construction continued until the building was completed the following year in September. The new courthouse was dedicated on 16 October 1937.

Along with the courtrooms and related offices, the Michigan Avenue Courthouse (MAC) originally housed the county prosecutor’s office, the county clerk, and the register of deeds. The county offices were later moved to their current building on Kalamazoo Avenue. The MAC building was home to the 8th District Court from 1969-2003, and the Criminal Division of the Consolidated 8th District Court from 2003-2023. The county jail occupied the top (fifth) floor until the 1970s, when it was moved to its current location on Lamont Avenue.

Charles A. Pratt Justice Center

After nearly 80 years of use, the Michigan Avenue Courthouse needed work. By 2017, the county was looking at $12 to $25 million in deferred maintenance costs while it searched for ways to address the building’s inherent safety issues. The 1937 structure was simply “not conducive to a modern environment” (Gazette).

The solution was a land swap that would exchange the county’s MAC building for property along the south side of Kalamazoo Avenue between Cooley and Park streets in the Arcadia Commons West area. The county would save millions in maintenance costs, while the Kalamazoo Avenue site would be used for a new courthouse that would consolidate the operations of county courts in the Michigan Avenue and Crosstown Parkway facilities. The deal was seen as an opportunity where “everybody wins” (Gazette).

In May 2021, construction began on the $95 million Charles A. Pratt Justice Center east of Park Street, between Kalamazoo Avenue and Eleanor Street. The new courthouse was named in honor of Judge Charles A. Pratt (1909-1989), the first black judge in Kalamazoo County.

The county circuit court on Crosstown Parkway closed in November 2023 and the Michigan Avenue Courthouse closed in December while the services of both were relocated to the new Justice Center. The Kalamazoo County District Court opened its doors in the Charles A. Pratt Justice Center on 11 December 2023. No word yet on the future of the Michigan Avenue building.

“This move completes the vision of consolidation efforts started in 1998, to have a unified District Court to serve Kalamazoo County.”

— County of Kalamazoo, 2023

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, January 2025