You're Never Too Kalamazoo to Learn More Things About Kalamazoo

This weekend, I read Nick Kekic's A Fine Place for a City: Titus Bronson and the Founding of Kalamazoo. Kekic's goal was to better understand Titus Bronson, as a person and as Kalamazoo's founder. The book was published in the early 1980s - a time when a lot of myths, lies, and fables circulated about the man, and nobody was terribly clear on what was and was not true.

I'll be honest: I was not terribly interested in Titus Bronson. I did, however, want to know more about the founding of Kalamazoo. And I learned all sorts of interesting fun facts!

Some of my new favorites:

Downtown Kalamazoo used to be oak openings... "Oak openings" are areas where large oak trees stand over grassland. They give the vibe of parks or gardens, and they're usually found where a woodland gives way to prairie. Early settlers were especially pleased to see them because they combined the best of both worlds: land that didn't need to be bushwhacked before planting a garden, with trees close at hand for building a cabin. In early settler literature, oak openings are often described as "delightful." Downtown Kalamazoo was one of the especially prized types: Its oaks were mostly burr oaks. Burr oaks demand and maintain more fertile soil than white oaks.

In the 1820s, Kalamazoo County contained two burr oak plains. One of them was where downtown Kalamazoo is now. The Potawatomi mound in Bronson Park is located almost exactly in the center of that onetime oak opening area.

...and then it wasn't. Titus Bronson was excited to find this gorgeous oak opening space when he showed up in the area in the late 1820s. By 1832, however, the landscape had changed dramatically. One couldn't wander through the oaks on the grass like a park anymore. Instead, one had to beat one's way through hazel thickets and underbrush.

Did Titus Bronson mess this place up in just a few years? Not singlehandedly. As settlers moved in, however, the locals moved out.

Turns out Kalamazoo County's oak openings aren't wholly natural features. The comparison to gardens is apt: The Potawatomi maintained them by setting controlled fires in the fall to manage the underbrush. These regular fires also accounted for the especially fertile soil in oak openings. No gardeners, no garden.

Titus Bronson nearly didn't build anything here at all. Discouraged by weather and hardship, Bronson at one point was ready to sell his claim in Kalamazoo Township to a friend for $100 and a gun - a fraction of what he paid. Fortunately for him, he had put the original claim in his wife's name rather than his own. Sally Bronson stopped that nonsense at once. "Whose name is on that deed?" she asked him.

Aside: Bronson's original claim is the 160 acres now bordered by Patterson, Westnedge, Lovell, and the Kalamazoo River. In case you want to know where he set up. His claim shanty - the temporary shack one had to build on a claim to prove one could, theoretically, live there - was somewhere near the Kalamazoo Ave and Westnedge intersection.

The first house built in Kalamazoo was built by a Black family. In 1830, William Harris, Kalamazoo's first Black settler, built a log cabin for his wife and three children. It was located near today's intersection of Westnedge and Water Street.

Harrison Street is probably named for Basil Harrison, the first White settler in Kalamazoo County, who spent a lot of time helping Titus Bronson figure out how to make a city. It is probably not named for Nathan Harrison, Basil's son, who ran a ferry service crossing the Kalamazoo River and Portage Creek for a couple years, until a bridge was built in 1835. The bridge instantly put Nathan out of business. He might not have minded too much: according to one historian, Nathan spent more time fishing than he did in business. His wife ran the ferry.

Burdick Street could be named for either of two guys. Justus Burdick bought a bunch of land that later became Kalamazoo and invested a ton of money here. But his brother, Cyren, is the one who actually built anything - the town's first hotel and tavern, at Michigan and Portage Streets - and farmed and generally did stuff here.

Comstock tried to steal "county seat" status from Kalamazoo. Horace Comstock, who was far richer than I realized, lobbied hard for Comstock to become the county seat of Kalamazoo County, even though the status had already been provisionally granted to Kalamazoo. Comstock also had several water-powered mills, giving it quite a bit of economic power. Comstock lost the local vote on the issue, though. Instead he built the first Comstock School in exchange for the locals naming the school, village, and township after him. (The locals were happy to do this, as Horace had invested considerable sums in building Comstock.)

Cooper Township is named after a woman. Specifically, it's named after Sarah Cooper Comstock, Horace Cooper's wife and niece of James Fenimore Cooper.

The churches were in the plan. The original plan for the village included space set aside for a county building, jail, schools, and the first four churches that organized enough to petition for land. The county building was where the old courthouse is now. The churches that border Bronson Park are also mostly on that original church land. (St. Luke's is on the land where Titus Bronson built a proper house.)

Titus Bronson probably wasn't a drunk, but he probably did steal that cherry tree. Among the stories told about Titus Bronson are that he was a drunk and that he was run out of town for stealing a neighbor's cherry tree. He probably wasn't a drunk. He was known for being vehemently opposed to alcohol. Once, he even tried to make himself vomit after eating pickles that he later learned were brined in a mix of water and whiskey. There are court records indicating he did steal a neighbor's cherry tree. The neighbor cut it down, and Titus hauled it off when his neighbor wasn't looking. Titus wasn't run out of town for this, however. He had been planning to move west for several years before the cherry tree incident. The town he founded was getting too crowded for him.

That jog in Westnedge at Lovell is a surveyor's error. Titus Bronson hired Phinias Hunt to survey his original claim to Kalamazoo - as well as land to the north and south. Hunt was a mathematician, however, not a surveyor. He set the line several feet west of where it was supposed to be. Westnedge follows the line, which is why it does that little swoop over right at the Lovell intersection.

My great-grandmother's story about her ancestor who walked to Kalamazoo and stayed here for two weeks before he could file his farm paperwork is probably true. My great-grandmother used to tell a story about an ancestor. The family owned a claim in Barry County in the 1830s, up by Yankee Springs. According to my great-grandmother, said ancestor walked to Kalamazoo to file his claim. Upon reaching the land office, he was told he would have a two-week wait to be seen by a one of the filing clerks. So said ancestor got himself a job so he could afford to stay at a local hotel for two weeks. He filed his claim and walked home.

As much as I like this story, it gives me "walked to school uphill both ways" vibes. But the historical record supports it! Settlers were flooding into Michigan in the mid-1830s. Kalamazoo was the site of one of three land offices in the state. In 1836, the land office staff - there were three of them - were working 12-hour days nonstop for months to file everyone's land claims. When they finally got a break, two of them were down sick for nearly a month. So yes. I now absolutely believe someone would have to stick around Kalamazoo for two weeks before they could even talk to a clerk.

There's more. If you can find a copy of this book, I recommend it. Kalamazoo's history is pretty neat.