FIVE FAVES ENCORE
Five Faves
Historian reveals the stories behind Kalamazoo street names by
LYNN HOUGHTON
Our homes, our places of work and our houses of
worship are located on them. We walk them, drive them and sometimes get lost on them. These are our streets, and, as in every other city, town or village, they have names. With all the time we spend on them, do we ever wonder the origin of their names? All over Kalamazoo County, there are streets with similar or unique monikers. They may reflect a person, place, natural feature, thing or maybe nothing at all. Here are five streets whose names are some of my favorites:
Peeler Street George C. Winslow’s family was a part of Kalamazoo since the 1830s, when his father, George Washington Winslow, arrived from Massachusetts and eventually opened a marble works business that his son took over. Elected to both city and county positions, George C. Winslow also became Kalamazoo’s first city assessor in 1897 and held that post for the next four years. During his tenure, he discovered that a small street that runs from Crosstown Parkway to Hudson Street, just to the south of Maple Street, had no name, so he took it upon himself to name it after his dog, Peeler. Available information does not indicate that he named any more streets after his pets.
16 | ENCORE JUNE 2020
Westnedge Avenue An 1834 map of the village of Bronson, Kalamazoo’s name until
1836, shows many of the city’s first streets. Three of these marked the boundaries of the community and were appropriately called South, North and West streets. The people creating these streets felt no need for an East Street since the Kalamazoo River created the village’s eastern boundary. South and North streets still exist, although they have not served as the city’s borders for many years. West Street kept its name until 1920, when the Kalamazoo Rotary Club requested that the city rename it to honor brothers Joseph and Richard Westnedge. Born and raised in Kalamazoo, both served in the military and gave their lives, Richard in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War and Joseph in France near the end of World War I.
