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West Main Street Elementary

Kalamazoo Public Schools


West Main School, early elementary building, Kalamazoo, 1940
West Main School, early elementary building, Kalamazoo, 1940, probably photographed by Mamie L. Austin. This building was later known as the Annex. The 1926 building is partially visible at the right. Kalamazoo Public Library Photo P-1007

All of Kalamazoo was experiencing a high level of growth by the turn of the twentieth century, which led to a need for more housing and for more schools. Nowhere was that as evident as on the west side of the city near a new neighborhood called Henderson Park around West Main Hill. In August of 1914, the Kalamazoo Public Schools Board of Education rented a building at 125 Prospect Place on the south side of West Main Street. Containing four rooms, the board expected it, “…will afford ample room.” Located in Kalamazoo Township, the City of Kalamazoo promised to provide water into the building. Classes began here in September for kindergarten through the third grade. The board renewed the lease two years later but within a year purchased three lots on West Main Street adjacent to the school for expansion and by November of 1917 is advertising for bids for a structure on the property. Known as the West Main Street School house, an informal gathering called a ‘house warming’ occurred on January 10, 1919.

Florence Balch Mills spoke on, “The School and the Community,” highlighting that the school is a center for not only education but also neighborhood activities and interests. The one-story, four-room wood frame building truly fit that bill as it held five grades and a branch library open every Friday afternoon to the people in the neighborhood in addition to providing a meeting place for the West Side Improvement Association, also known as the West Kalamazoo Improvement Association, along with a Sunday School.

West Main School, Sanborn Maps c.1932, 1958
Location of West Main Street school buildings. (Key) yellow: early elementary building (“Annex”), pink: 1926 building, blue: 1955 addition, green: 1961 addition. Sanborn Map Company, c.1932, 1958, 1964. Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collections

By 1920, over one hundred students attended school in this building at 1627 West Main Street raising the need for a larger structure. Voters in June of that year approved bonds to construct a new school on the site not to exceed $85,000. For reasons unknown, the bonds remained unsold and plans were not underway until five years later. The architectural firm, Billingham and Cobb received the contract to design the school with contractor Henry VanderHorst chosen to build it. The Board made the decision to use the same plans the firm developed for Hillcrest Elementary. Like its “sister school,” West Main contained seven classrooms and an auditorium in addition to a branch library operated by the Kalamazoo Public Library under the direction of Flora Roberts. The building opened in November of 1926. There is no evidence in the Kalamazoo Gazette that any open house or house warming occurred to commemorate the new addition to the West Main Hill neighborhood.

The West Main Street School, an example of Collegiate Gothic architectural style, was a mirror image of Hillcrest especially with its buff-colored brick and massive arched entrances on the east and west side of the building. It sat to the west of the wood-frame structure that continued in use for the school. For many years attendance at West Main averaged around 150 students, about the same size as Hillcrest but not as large as other schools like Roosevelt on the east side and McKinley on the south side.

Post World War II saw another period of immense growth with the birth rate skyrocketing. Kalamazoo experienced another wave of new school construction and school additions throughout the district. In 1953, discussion started to build a major addition to West Main approved by the voters and would start the next year. Local architect William Stone began to draw up plans that would include replacing the wooden building. During the spring of 1954, discussion began to create “neighborhood schools” which would contain kindergarten through the third grade. These simple, smaller structures would cost less than a larger elementary school building. These discussions led to the design of an addition to West Main much smaller than planned. Designed by M.C.J. Billingham and built by the Ray Stevens Company it held, similar to Hillcrest’s addition built at the same time, a kindergarten room, office and clinic. Completed in 1955 it sat to the south of the 1926 school building.

In December of 1960, an official of the Kalamazoo Fire Department delivered his recommendations of buildings in use by the Kalamazoo Public Schools that needed demolition due to their age and condition. One that made the list was the wood frame building at West Main Elementary School in use for over forty years. In came down two years later replaced by a new addition designed by the firm of Stone, Smith and Parent which contained four classrooms, a library, lobby, all-purpose room and activities area.

Due both to financial difficulties and declining enrollment, West Main Elementary School, along with four other elementary schools in Kalamazoo closed in 1980. Over the next twenty years, different agencies and programs leased the building. The Kalamazoo Public Schools later chose to convert the building into the West Main Professional Development Center, completed in 2003, providing space for training programs and various meetings. Tower, Pinkster, Titus Associates redesigned the building that included the demolition of the two additions. The building continues to play a role in educating not the students but the teachers and other professionals of the district.

West Main School, later elementary building, 1940
West Main School, later elementary building, 1940, Kalamazoo, probably photographed by Mamie L. Austin. The original frame building is partially visible to the left of the newer brick building. Kalamazoo Public Library Photo P-1006

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

Sources

 

Articles

Kalamazoo Gazette, various years.


Maps

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Published by Sanborn Map Company 1932, 1958, updated 1964
Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collections


Files

Official Proceedings of the Board of Education of the School District #1 of the City and Township of Kalamazoo, Michigan, various years.

 

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