About Kalamazoo, Michigan (courtesy of Wikipedia)
Kalamazoo is a city in the southwest area of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 77,145. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County.
Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University, a nationally recognized research institution that has benefited from the local presence of Pfizer and Stryker Corporation. This has enabled the school to offer strong programs in both its College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Haworth College of Business.
The city is also home to Kalamazoo College (often referred to as "K-College"), a prestigious liberal arts school located adjacent to Western's campus.
At the time explorers first began arriving, the area was home to the Potawatomi Indians. The 1821 Treaty of Chicago ceded all the territory south of the Grand River to the United States federal government. However, the area around present-day Kalamazoo was reserved as the village of Chief Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish. On the September 19, 1827, Treaty with the Potawatomi, the tract that became the city was also ceded. The village had been a fur trading center.
In 1829, Titus Bronson, originally from Connecticut, was the first white settler to build a cabin within the present city limits.[2] He platted the town in 1831 and named it the village of Bronson (not to be confused with the much-smaller Bronson, Michigan about fifty miles (80 km) to the south-southeast).
Bronson was frequently described as "eccentric" and argumentative and was later run out of town. The village of Bronson was renamed Kalamazoo in 1836 (due in part to an incident resulting in Bronson's being fined for stealing a cherry tree).[3] Today, a hospital and a park, among other things, are named after Titus Bronson.
Kalamazoo legally incorporated as a village in 1838 and as a city in 1883.
On August 27, 1856, Abraham Lincoln spoke at a rally in Kalamazoo's Bronson Park, promoting the presidential candidacy of John C. Fremont, who was running on the ticket of the newly formed Republican Party. The occasion marks Lincoln's only visit or public address within the State.
In 1959, Kalamazoo designed the first pedestrian mall in the U.S.[1], lending it the nickname "Mall City".
Downtown Kalamazoo was struck by an F3 tornado on May 13, 1980, killing 5 and injuring 79.
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