Kalamazoo, MI Real Estate

Kalamazoo is a city in the southwest area of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 77,145. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County.

Kalamazoo is home to Western Michigan University, a nationally recognized research institution that has benefited from the local presence of Pfizer and Stryker Corporation. This has enabled the school to offer strong programs in both its College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Haworth College of Business.

The city is also home to Kalamazoo College (often referred to as "K College"), a prestigious liberal arts school located adjacent to Western's campus.

The city is named after the Kalamazoo River, but no one is certain as to where the name Kalamazoo actually comes from. A lack of evidence means that the truth will likely never be found, but there are a number of theories and folk etymologies accounting for the name:

In his 1986 Indian Names in Michigan, Virgil Vogel explained when Kalamazoo County was formed on July 30, 1830, it "was allegedly named from the 'Indian' name of the river, Ke-kanaamazoo, 'the boiling pot'." There had been various transliterations of the term. In the 1821 Treaty of Chicago, the village of Match-e-be narh-she-wish, was described as at the head of the "Kekalamazoo river" (this village became the present-day city). Vogel suggests that the word "may be from the Miami, because of the presence of l." Vogel cites Father Chrysostam Verwyst stating the name Kalamazoo comes from Ojibwe as a "corruption of Kikanamsoso" meaning "it smokes, or he is troubled with smoke" and pronounced " kee-kah-nah-mo-zo or kee-kau-nau-mo-zo ". Vogel also cites William R. Gerard as concurring in this opinion, that "Kalamazoo is a slight alteration of older Ojibwe kikal moza, meaning 'he is inconvenienced by smoke in his lodge'." Vogel further cites Gerard as dismissing Schoolcraft's opinion that the name was from negikanamazoo, or "otters beneath the surface" as an "etymological absurdity". However, Vogel also suggests that both Verwyst and Gerard accounts also "deserve this label". Vogel also dismisses the view that the name means "mirage or reflecting river". [1]

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Kalamazoo, MI $395,000	Kalamazoo, MI $141,000
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