Famous Visitors
Ralph Waldo Emerson came to Kalamazoo in February of 1860 and a second time in 1867
Over the course of almost two hundred years, a wide variety of ‘famous’ individuals have strolled through Kalamazoo. Most were here to present speeches on one topic or another. There were the political visits from campaigning candidates and the lectures given by poets and artists, typically held at Western Michigan University or Kalamazoo College. Walt Disney was friendly with the Gilmore family as was Stephen A. Douglas with local attorney Charles A. Stuart. J. Edgar Hoover gave a commencement speech in 1937 for Kalamazoo College students. Some are well-known, others less so.
Alinsky, Saul (sociologist, activist) 11-3-1965
Autry, Gene (singer, actor) 4-12-1944
Brooks, Gwendolyn (author) 3-23-1966
Bryan, William Jennings (attorney) 10-16-1896
Clemens, Samuel (aka Mark Twain) (author) 12-16-1871
Cliburn, Van (musician) 2-13-1967
Cobain, Kurt (musician) 10-27-1993
Cody, William F. (aka Buffalo Bill) (entertainer) 10-1883
Cooper, James Fenimore (author) mid-1840s
Copland, Aaron (composer) 5-1965
Creeley, Robert (poet) 10-1964
Disney, Walt (entertainer) 9-17-1964
Douglas, Stephen A. (politician) 10-16-1860
Earhart, Amelia (aviator) 10-22-1935
Edison, Thomas (inventor) 1870s
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (philosopher, author) 2-14-1860 and 1867
Frostic, Gwen (artist) 3-25-1966
Graham, Martha (dancer) 2-14-1943
Greeley, Horace (journalist) 1850s
Gregory, Dick (comedian) 10-18-1979
Griffin, John H. (author) 10-20-1965
Harvey, Paul (radio personality) 1-26-1965
Hoffa, James (union organizer) 2-21-1965
Hoover, J. Edgar (head of the FBI) 6-14-1937
Hughes, Langston (author) 2-1-1945
King Jr., Dr. Martin Luther (civil rights activist) 1963
Landers, Ann (advice columnist) 11-14-1961
Le Corbusier (architect) 11-1935
Marshall, Thurgood (Supreme Court Justice) 6-4-1961
Nelson, George (designer) 11-28-1956
Presidents of the United States: (Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama)
Rivera, Diego (artist) 12-11-1932
Roosevelt, Eleanor (first lady, activist) 10-23-1958
Sandburg, Carl (poet) 4-26-1944
Sexton, Anne (poet) 5-12-1965
Sontag, Susan (author, critic) 3-17-1966
Stevenson, Adlai E. (politician) 10-17-1956
Stone, Lucy (suffragist) February, 1855
Thoreau, Henry David (author) Spring 1861
Wright, Frank Lloyd (architect) 11-2-1947