Kalamazoo And How It Grew

Most of Kalamazoo County's early white settlers were fur traders from England or New York. The remainder came from Pennsylvania and Maryland. After 1845 the number of foreign immigrants increased rapidly especially with the coming of the Hollanders in 1850. The growth rate of the county's population reached its height between 1845-1860, when almost 8,000 newcomers settled there. That growth rate was not exceeded for 50 years when, between 1904-1920, the population grew to 214,000, quite an ...