City halls are places where decisions are made, where things happen (or sometimes don’t when you wish they would) and where other things are celebrated or mourned. Kalamazoo’s City Hall is all of that and has been for almost a century, as the building observes its 94th anniversary this month.
From reservation to public square
The Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi and their ancestors lived in and around Kalamazoo for thousands of years, but through a series of treaties, the U.S. government took their land away in 1827. Tribal members were forced from the reservation created for them so the land could be sold to mostly white settlers.
It didn’t take long. On Nov. 1, 1830, Stephen Richardson and his brother-in-law, Titus Bronson, each bought 80 acres. Bronson’s land was east of what is now South Rose Street, and Richardson’s was west of there.
A year later, Bronson and Richardson’s combined 160 acres became the plat of “Brunson” — later corrected to “Bronson” and still later changed to Kalamazoo. The plat’s southern boundary ran along West South Street, where City Hall stands today. On Richardson’s side, land later known as the “Four Squares” was reserved to provide free land for structures designed for public and religious uses. Successful development of the Four Squares, including the eventual creation of Bronson Park, quickly made the area the center of a residential building boom. Additional plats were created and large homes built for some of the city’s best-known public servants, merchants and professionals.
A generation later, that land began a shift away from residential use. “Corporation Hall” or “Quick to The Rescue Hall,” a two-story building constructed in 1867 in the first block south of Main (now Michigan Avenue) on South Burdick Street, housed the community’s first City Hall in offices above the fire department. In 1908, the fire department moved, and Corporation Hall’s ground floor was renovated for use as City Hall. All was well for a while, but after years of complaints that the offices were too small, crowded, crumbling, leaky and under-engineered, it seemed everyone in city government agreed in 1923 that a new city hall was needed and the city put the question of a new building to voters.
Surprisingly, the voters did not agree. But the administration was convinced it was time to do something. They purchased the F.H. Milham and F.C. Orcutt family homes south of Bronson Park, on West South and West Lovell Streets, quickly renovated them, and by April 1925 City Hall had moved into them.
Soon after, the idea for a new city hall was revived, and by the end of 1927 City Manager Albert Ten Busschen had outlined a program to save enough money over eight years to construct a city hall costing upwards of $700,000. He revised the plan in 1928, reducing the cost to $600,000 paid over seven years without new bonds or taxes.
Redevelopment in the area was snow-balling. Three churches already flanked Bronson Park, including the “old” Methodist church, built in 1842 at Academy and Church Streets (later home to First Reformed); First Congregational, completed in 1890; and the Christian Science church in 1914. First United Methodist would be completed in 1929, and a Presbyterian church planned for the lot immediately west of the City Hall site would become the fifth sacred place adjacent to Bronson Park. That church’s future was cemented soon after, with help from Chicago planner Jacob Crane, whom the city hired to shape its first master plan.
The area’s second development period was charted to create a “civic center” around Bronson Park. Adjacent homes were slowly demolished for new cultural and institutional buildings, both in anticipation of and following Crane’s plan. The transformation would eventually involve a new city hall between St. John’s Place and Rose Street, with the not-quite-finished Presbyterian church directly to its west.
Crane’s plan also proposed a building for the southeast corner of Park and South streets and a county building directly east of First Congregational Church.
Long discussions, quick construction
The discussion on City Hall’s construction had begun in 1923, and getting to the building’s 1931 completion was a lengthy process. However, once the final decision on construction was made, the building went up with astounding momentum.
Here’s how things transpired between 1929 and 1931:
Planner Jacob Crane and architect Edwin Weary, of Chicago’s Weary & Alford architecture firm, visited town in the first half of 1929. Weary’s company had contracted to build a model of the new city hall building and came to see the site in April. Crane followed in May and spoke about the plan to 400 people gathered at the Masonic Temple.
Following the October 1929 stock market crash, the City Hall project was back in the news, bringing with it numerous endorsements. City Commissioner Alfred Curtenius cited a rigid economic “no debt or taxes” plan for raising the money and the possible sale of other property to help cover the cost. Mayor S. Rudolf Light recognized the need to replace the “unsightly fire trap that now inadequately serves the purpose.” Civic reformer Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane voiced her opinion in a letter to the Kalamazoo Gazette, saying the city’s dignity was at stake and it should “go ahead with this outrageously-neglected civic enterprise.”
In July 1930, the City Commission reviewed construction bids from three companies, ultimately choosing Weary & Alford.
As the nation moved quickly toward the Great Depression, the Aug. 3, 1930 Gazette connected the City Hall project to President Herbert Hoover’s efforts to rebuild the nation’s economy through public projects. It published a drawing of the new City Hall on its front page and expressed support, saying, “The members of the commission are convinced that a building which houses the government of the community should be a structure whose architecture sets it apart from the office buildings and stores of commerce and gives pride and pleasure to the citizens.”
The city manager assured the public that all funds were in place and that there was no need to borrow, describing the building as an example of “restrained modern American architecture.” Several days later, workers drove a 30-foot shaft into the ground to determine the engineering plan for the building’s foundation.
Simple Design, Art Deco Details
Read about City Hall’s unique design in story at right
On Aug. 27, 1931, a Gazette article said that although voters had repeatedly rejected the City Hall project for “their own convenience and protection,” the tide quickly turned to strong support when they understood that the project would provide employment relief — 100 unemployed people would get two full days of work every week.
But then on Sept. 9 the City Commission received a petition to delay construction and again take the project to the voters. Learning there were more petitions coming, the commission put its decision on hold and made a substantial effort to ensure that the public would support the question this time. A month later, their efforts were rewarded when the proposal to build a new city hall won by 860 votes.
Within two weeks, temporary office space for city workers was secured in the then-empty A.M. Todd Building on North Park Street. The Milham/Orcutt buildings were vacated by Dec. 7 and demolished a week later. The city awarded a contract to The Studio of Architectural Sculpture in Detroit for eight reliefs to surround the building’s upper exterior and appropriated $475,000 for the building in its 1931 budget.
By Jan. 9, 1931, the site was cleared, and by Jan. 15 day and night shifts were on the job. One hundred years after the Richardson-Bronson city plat was created, the new City Hall’s cornerstone was laid on March 12, 1931. A time capsule placed inside the cornerstone included images of the original plat and the first county courthouse, a centennial celebration program, a medallion of Titus Bronson, village maps, copies of the original and current city charters, photos of the City Commission and Charter Commission, Kalamazoo Gazette editions with accounts of the centennial celebration, and histories of Kalamazoo College and Western State Teachers College (now Western Michigan University).
By mid-July 1931, planning for a Sept. 1 open house had begun. Finishing touches on the building were being completed, including a beautiful ceiling and mural by German immigrant artist Otto Stauffenberg in the court/commission chamber.
At 2 p.m. Sept. 1, thousands of people visited the new City Hall for the first time. A brief commission meeting was held in the chambers, where Mayor Light took official possession of the building, praised the building committee and read congratulatory messages.
Kalamazoo’s feat was publicized across the country. The Oct. 11 edition of the Gazette reported that Caroline Bartlett Crane spoke of City Hall’s construction process at the American Civic Association’s conference in Detroit. At the crushing brink of the Great Depression, the city had saved money, built a well-designed Art Deco-influenced jewel in a newly created civic center and provided crucial financial assistance to individuals and families.
City Hall’s completion was followed by the Civic Auditorium’s opening the same year and the completion of the county building in 1937, realizing Jacob Crane’s Kalamazoo civic plan. In 1983, nearly a half-century later, Kalamazoo City Hall became a jewel in a national crown when it was honored as part of a newly established historic district listed in the National Register of Historic Places, a district with Bronson Park at its center.
