Parkwood-Upjohn Elementary School

Kalamazoo Public Schools

Crowded conditions at a number of schools in Kalamazoo led to the construction of new buildings including one in the growing Westnedge Hill neighborhood to the south of downtown. The vote was close but citizens in the summer of 1920 approved the selection and purchase of the site bounded by South Park, Parkwood, Tremont and Inkster Streets in addition to raising $85,000 for the building and equipment. By September, the Board of Education awarded the local architectural firm of Billingham and Cobb to design the building and the DeRight Brothers to construct it. The name of the school came from the one of the plats in the neighborhood created several years earlier.

Opened in November of 1921, this two-story building made of Old English Mission brick contained eight rooms for kindergarten through the sixth grade. About 150 students attended when the school began but the building could hold twice that number. An example of an architectural style called Collegiate Gothic, the building has arched entrances, crenellations above the cornice and decorative shields on the exterior.

A growing demand for space led the Board of Education to approve the construction of an addition to the building. Completed in 1931 and also designed by Billingham and Cobb, the addition, built to the south, contained four classrooms, offices, a clinic and a combined auditorium and gymnasium. Like with the original building, oak woodwork was throughout the new structure. The kindergarten classroom, said to be spacious, had a fireplace, which gave the space a homey feeling.

In 1938, plans were underway for a new school adjacent to Parkwood for students with special needs. Grace Bray Upjohn, widow of William Harold Upjohn, donated funds along with other relatives and friends. In addition, the Kalamazoo Public Schools received a grant from the Public Works Administration, a New Deal program to aid with costs. The school, named the Harold Upjohn School, would be separate from Parkwood and house programs for students who were visually, hearing and physically challenged. They also incorporated an open-air room so students could get fresh air considered beneficial.

Designed by Detroit architect Albert Kahn, an article reported that the style would “…conform with the residential architecture of homes in the Parkwood area.” Chosen was Georgian-Colonial Revival with a high-pitched gable roof, double-hung windows and an inset entrance. Dedicated in October of 1939, the interior had low handrails, recessed drinking fountains and padded benches. Painted panels on the first floor depict fishing and gardening scenes. The therapy pool, now the location of the school’s library, has a terra-cotta wall mural of Aesop’s Fables designed by the Northwestern Terra Cotta Corporation of Chicago, Illinois. The kindergarten room in this school also has a fireplace bordered with Dutch tile. Students from all over the area attended this school, not just from the Kalamazoo School District.

Nine years after the opening of the Upjohn School, the Kalamazoo Shrine Club in 1948 gave funds for a breezeway, connecting the Parkwood and Upjohn Schools, containing an elevator. Added to the north of the Parkwood School in 1955 were two classrooms for the growing number of students.

During the 1960s, students at the Upjohn School began to take classes with those students at the Parkwood School especially gym, art and music. Mainstreaming special needs students into regular classrooms became an acceptable program in education beginning in the 1970s. Many students attending the Upjohn School began to attend school in their home districts. Over the years, students from the Upjohn School joined students in classrooms in the Parkwood School creating one school where there once were two. At some point in time, Parkwood-Upjohn Elementary School became its name. For many years, kindergarten through grade three would be located on the Upjohn side and grades four through six would be on the Parkwood side. Eventually all of the sixth grades were integrated into the District’s four middle schools.

Over the last twenty-five years, there have been several improvements to Parkwood-Upjohn School including new gardens on the south side, an expanded breezeway and elevator, an enlarged gymnasium and a new outdoor playground and track.

Since 1921, Parkwood-Upjohn Elementary School has served countless numbers of children in the neighborhood and in the Kalamazoo Public Schools District, laying the foundation of their education and creating memories they carried with them to other schools and to their eventual destinations in life.

Compiled & written by Lynn Houghton, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, February 2008. Updated June 2020.