Kalamazoo Public Library history

At least briefly, its first home was somewhere on Main Street (now Michigan Avenue), but when Corporation Hall opened on South Burdick Street in 1867, the library moved into one of two small rooms in that building.

Patterson was born in 1869 on a farm in Eaton County, grew up there, and graduated from Grand Ledge High School at the age of 16.

In 1870 the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad began service through Kalamazoo with a passenger station on the southeast corner of Pitcher Street and East Main, today’s East Michigan Avenue.

“In September, 1872, we, (the committee) found a small library put up in two small closets, without classification, and uncatalogued.

When the Ladies Library Association vacated the other room in 1878, the public library expanded into their space.

Lake Street School/Edison: Built in 1880, the Edison Neighborhood school…

By 1885 it was open six days a week and possessed more than 11,000 volumes.

Photos of the original 1893 Romanesque building reveal wings and towers filled with windows to capture the light.

In 1896 KPL became one of the first 10 libraries in the nation to establish a children’s room.

Patterson was an avid card player, and in 1901, while playing cards in his Vine Street home, he came up with the idea for a new game that would be played with a special deck that he would produce and sell.

“The Acme of Parlor Games,” “More Simple Than Authors,” “More Scientific Than Whist.” Sound like fun? For the millions of Americans who have purchased it since 1902, Flinch has provided limitless hours of strategy and entertainment.

A depository of government documents was established here in 1907, the only one in the area for many years thereafter.

Roosevelt School: Built in 1909 atop a hill on East Main Street…

The first Kalamazoo Public Library branch dedicated to serving the east side of the city opened in 1912 in the original East Avenue School building.

“Books Wanted for Soldiers” was the Kalamazoo Public Library’s (K.P.L.) request to the public in August 1917.

When Flora B. Roberts began her twenty-four year career as chief librarian of the Kalamazoo Public Library in February 1918, she found the library in complete disarray.

In 1929 it became the first public library in the country to provide moving picture film service.

Red Arrow Golf Course: Built as part of a WPA infrastructure project in 1937

Arthur Patterson died in 1948, but the game that he invented lives on, and families the world over can still enjoy his legacy by playing a game of Flinch.

Designed by Louis C. Kingscott, Inc., and built by the Miller-Davis Company, the combined library and museum building opened in 1959.

A group of interested Oshtemo Township citizens began meeting in 1964 to discuss forming a library.

In May of 1968 an anonymous gift of $10,000 was received by the Kalamazoo Board of Education for the purpose of establishing a library in the poorest section of town.

In 1974 the Eastwood Community Club donated its former community center on Gayle Avenue, known as John Strand Hall, to the library for a new branch.

Service began there on 10 July 1975.

The Community Club marked its 60th anniversary in 1981 by purchasing additional lots adjacent to the building to provide for parking and future expansion for the branch.

As the accumulation of artifacts grew, a distinct museum evolved, but it remained part of the Kalamazoo Public Library organization until 1984 and continued to share its building for another dozen years after that.

Black Arts Festival: In 1985, the planning for the inaugural Black Arts Festival began

Huebner, Jeff Chronicle, Sep/Oct 1986 (copy in History Room Subject File: Flinch Card Company )

The fund was dedicated in 1987, during the sesquicentennial celebration of Michigan’s statehood, by Mary Frances Miller Patton and her husband, Major General John S. Patton.

The library continued to function under the direction of the board of education for more than a century until 1990, when voters agreed to form a district library which would function under its own board of trustees.

The grand re-opening was held in August of 1996.

The KPL Story, 1998 mini-documentary

Kalamazoo Public Library Flickr Commons Collection Established in 2008, The Commons is a partnership project between Flickr and The Library of Congress, with contributions from dozens of academic libraries, public…