 home | movie | river | kalamazoo | contact  It’s not just a punch line. Often used as the butt of jokes, songs, or word puzzles, Kalamazoo the city has taken on many forms since its birth as a village named after the river and county. The word Kalamazoo (originally spelled Kekalamazoo) is a Pottawatomie Indian word of Algonquin origin, most likely meaning boiling or sparkling water, assumed to derive from the image of the ripples over the shallows at the ford. Originally named “Bronson” after founder Titus Bronson, this was an ideal location to set up a city due to its location at the crossroads of sixteen Indian trails. The nexus of these trails, which today are visible as the main vehicular arteries across the state, was the ford of the river (a shallow place to cross), estimated to lie within the boundaries of the Kalamazoo Wastewater Treatment Facility. With the advent of trapping and trading in the European economy, also near this nexus in the early 1800s a trading post sprang up, located today via a metal plaque on a rock describing its approximate location in Riverview Cemetery. Platting the town of Bronson around the strange mound and bizarre garden beds centered in what is now Bronson Park, the town center developed far away from the Kalamazoo River, leaving it conveniently available for industry to utilize, which it promptly did. Grist mills, flour mills, and eventually paper mills were only some of the industries to utilize the four main tributaries and mainstream for removal of their wastes. Known for its diversity of products throughout the Industrial era, Kalamazoo adopted nicknames which reflected its commitment to economy and industry. First it was the “Burr Oak City,” labeled for that rare oak which defined the regions primary geographic signifier besides the river. Oak Openings were scenic park-like settings which appeared on the edges of Oak Savannah prairies endowed with tall canopies, lush wildflower coverage, and space enough between trees for a wagon to pass through. This title and its connection with this region was immortalized in James Fennimore Cooper’s 1857 book “Oak Openings.” Agriculture was the primary industry for a time, spurning a hearty economy in agricultural technology, leading to a brief nickname of “The Windmill City.” Soon it was called the “Celery City,” testament to the hard labor of countless Dutch immigrants who developed the region's marsh areas to cultivate this now popular vegetable and ultimately sell more than any other city in the world for a time.
By the turn of the 19th century, due to its ideal conditions, the paper industry had begun in earnest and five mills dotted the valley from Kalamazoo down to Otsego, peaking at fifteen mills dedicated to the manufacture of paper by the 1930s, when gross pollution began in earnest. Getting to this point in history earned Kalamazoo the title of the “Paper City,” out-doing the competition the world over in total production of book paper. Perhaps to gloss over its new image of a polluted river, around the 1930s the city took a new image, declaring its economic responsibilities as the biggest priority and proudly calling itself “The Debt-Free City.” The city had been on a strict pay-as-you-go policy for municipal needs all the way up to its eventual need for a sewage treatment facility, completed in 1956.
Quite recently Kalamazoo has made an attempt to improve neglected areas of the riverfront and utilize the appeal of the waterway through the development of park and recreation areas. In the 1990s a large stretch of Arcadia Creek was exposed and rebuilt to draw attention to the resource, and new ideas like the city ‘s “River Redevelopment Plan” leave a glimmer of hope for the citizen’s return to their natural heritage.
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