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Location:
Travel
About Kalamazoo
About Saugatuck
Air Travel
- Train Travel
- Driving to WMU
- Parking
- Kalamazoo County Convention and Visitors Bureau Guide to Transportation
Air Travel
Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport is served by Northwest Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Airlines. Detroit and Minneapolis (Northwest), Chicago (American), and Cincinnati and Atlanta (Delta) are the major hubs offering air connections.
Some Congress attendees find it convenient to fly to Grand Rapids, South Bend, Detroit, or Chicago and rent a car. Driving time from Gerald R. Ford International Airport (Grand Rapids) and from South Bend Regional Airport is less than two hours. Driving time from Detroit Metro Airport is about two-and-a-half hours, from O’Hare (Chicago) at least three hours. Kalamazoo (Eastern Time) is always one hour ahead of Chicago (Central Time). DTW Transportation Services (1-866-389-8294) offers taxis from Detroit Metro Airport to Kalamazoo (advance reservation required).
Ground Transportation from the Airport
Taxi service is also available at the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport.
The Radisson Plaza Hotel, Holiday Inn–West and Hawthorn Suites provide shuttle service to and from the airport, which will be the most convenient option for Congress attendees staying at those hotels.
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Train Travel
Amtrak trains (Chicago-Detroit-Pontiac and Chicago-East Lansing-Port Huron routes) serve Kalamazoo daily.
Taxi service is available at the Kalamazoo train station, and the Kalamazoo Metro Transit bus #16 stops near the Fetzer Center registration (fare: $1.35).
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Driving to WMU
Kalamazoo is located at the crossroads of Interstate-94 and US Route 131 in Southwest Michigan, a two-and-a-half hour drive from Chicago or Detroit.
Online and Printable Maps
Click here for online and printable maps of the WMU campus and the surrounding area.
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Parking
Parking is available in the Fetzer Center parking lots (free to the participants) and at selected other parking lots on campus. Parking permits are available at registration. Permits cost $10.00 in 2009. Do not park in prohibited areas. Individuals parking in these areas will have their cars towed at their expense.
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About Kalamazoo
Kalamazoo, the home of Western Michigan University’s main campus, is the fifth largest city in Michigan, with a county population of more than 220,000 residents. The city is located midway between Chicago and Detroit, 140 miles from each, 2.5 hours driving time on I-94. Kalamazoo offers commercial transportation by train, bus, and major airline.
Local festivals attract crowds in the hundreds of thousands. They are planned throughout the year and include:
- Gilmore International Keyboard Festival ($300,000 first prize)
- Ethnic festivals: Hispanic, Greek and Black Arts
- Arts Festival
- Flowerfest
- New Year’s Fest
- Wine and Harvest Festival
Venues such as WMU’s Miller Auditorium, Wings Stadium and the historic Chenery Auditorium and State Theater offer a complete array of concerts featuring every kind of music and popular entertainment. Because of its location (midway between Chicago and Detroit), Kalamazoo is a frequent stop for many of today's top comedians, musicians and other entertainers. The city is home to the Kalamazoo Ballet, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and the prestigious Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival.
Theater is alive and thriving in Kalamazoo. In addition to performances at WMU and at Kalamazoo College, there are several commercial and community theatre companies, perhaps most notably the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre—one of the oldest, largest, and most-respected community theatres in the United States.
A few of the many other cultural opportunities—and there are many—include the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and art cinema sponsored by the Kalamazoo Film Society and Western Film Society.
In addition to NCAA Division I sports offered at WMU, the Kalamazoo community has the Kalamazoo K-Wings (UHL hockey), Kalamazoo Kingdom (pro soccer), and Kalamazoo Kings (frontier league pro baseball). There are also AAA minor league baseball teams in Battle Creek and Grand Rapids.
Kalamazoo is just 40 minutes from Lake Michigan beaches and only three to four hours from Michigan’s ski country, considered the best skiing in the central U.S. Excellent local skiing is only 30 minutes away.
The area offers a wide variety of opportunities for entertainment, culture, recreation, and employment.
The city is named for the Kalamazoo River, but there is debate as to where the name Kalamazoo actually comes from. It is generally thought the name originates in the language of either the Potawatomi or Odawa peoples who were native to the area at the time of European settlement.
The common phrase "from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo" resulted from the strange name, and has served to enter it into pop culture. Today, t-shirts are sold in Kalamazoo with the phrase "Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo".
There are numerous songs that reference the city name in lyrics and title, including: "All Over The World" by Rascalz, "Down on the Corner" by Creedence Clearwater Revival,[3] "I've Been Everywhere" by Johnny Cash;[4] "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" by Glenn Miller;[5] "Kalamazoo" by Ben Folds Five;[6] "Kalamazoo" by Primus;[7] "Kalamazoo" by Luna;[8] and Kalamazoo by Mike Craver on his album "Shining Down".[9] The word also features in the opera Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass. An indie film, Kalamazoo?, features the city as a backdrop.
History
The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency still remains in the form of a small mound downtown in Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to decline at some point after the eighth century and was replaced by other groups.[10] The Pottawatomi culture was resident in the area at the time the first European explorers arrived.
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle is recorded as having passed through the area, just southeast of the present city, in late March, 1680. The first Europeans to reside in the area were itinerant fur traders in the late 18th and early 19th century. There are records of several traders wintering in the area, and by the 1820s at least one trading post had been established.[11][12]
During the War of 1812, the British established a smithy and a prison camp in the area.[13]
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 Potawatomi Chief Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish. Six years later, as a result of the 1827 Treaty of St. Joseph, the tract that became the city was also ceded.
In 1829, Titus Bronson, originally from Connecticut, was the first white settler to build a cabin within the present city limits.[14] 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).
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.
The Kalamazoo Mall, the first outdoor pedestrian shopping mall in the United States, began with the closing of Burdick Street to auto traffic in 1959. The four block long mall, stretching from Lovell Street on the South to Eleanor Street on the north, has been restyled to match the attributes of the Arcadia Commons development, where the new Kalamazoo Public Museum anchors the north end of the mall. In 1999, however, two blocks of the mall were modified to accommodate auto traffic after a period of political debates on the issue.[16] The creation of the mall gave Kalamazoo the name of "Mall City."
In the Fall of 1971, the Kalamazoo Public Schools system was ordered by a Federal Judge to be integrated after he found the school system to be unlawfully segregated. The judge's determination was the culmination of nearly a decade of racially charged incidents and protests, included several city-wide school closures. A program of two-way bussing was implemented in September 1971, in which the city's black students were transported from downtown Kalamazoo in the north and east sections of the city to predominantly white neighborhoods on the west side, and vice versa. The program was closely watched by education experts as the city's population more closely mirrored the demographic make up of the United States as a whole than any other jurisdiction. The bussing program continued through the late 1990s.
Beginning in 1971, numerous white families moved from the Kalamazoo Public Schools to adjacent districts, particularly Portage Public Schools to the south and Mattawan Consolidated School to the west. Despite a nearly 10 percent population reduction over the next two decades, the integration plan was more successful than in other large Michigan districts where "white flight" was more severe.
Downtown Kalamazoo was struck by an F3 tornado on May 13, 1980, killing 5 and injuring 79.[17]About Saugatuck
A dinner at the ship – the Lake of Michigan – on Saturday, June 6, 2009 afternoon
http://www.saugatuck.com/are.asp
Directions: Kalamazoo - Saugatuck
- Head west on M-43/W Main St toward Grand Ave, 3.1 mi
- Turn right to merge onto US-131 N toward Grand Rapids, 10.8 mi
- Take exit 49B to merge onto Allegan St/M-89 W toward Allegan , Continue to follow M-89 W, 12.6 mi
- Turn left at Cutler St/M-40/M-89, Continue to follow M-40/M-89, 6.4 mi
- Turn left at M-89, 14.0 mi
- Turn right at 68th St/Blue Star Hwy, Continue to follow Blue Star Hwy, 4.3 mi
