History
Preserving Our History is at Our Core
Discover what the residents are doing today to
preserve the history of Stuart.
Preserving Our Rich History
Woodward Clock
Tower
Stuart Historical
Markers
A Brief History on Stuart
The Stuart neighborhood saw its beginnings in the 1840s and 1850s as a largely rural suburban adjunct of Kalamazoo. Mountain Home Cemetery, located on the hilly ground above what is now the Stuart area, was established in the late 1840s and in the 1840s and early 1850s the first suburban residences were built in the area.
The building of United States Senator Charles E. Stuart home (1854-58) at 427 Stuart Avenue and the platting of the area in the 1850s led to further development in the 1860s and 1870s. However, the areas real growth began in 1884, when a horse-car line was introduced, and continued into the early twentieth century.
In this period the Stuart neighborhood became the city's most fashionable residential quarter, as the city's leading carriage, paper, and plow manufacturers and other businessmen and professionals and no less than three United States senators--Charles E. Stuart, Francis B. Stockbridge, and Julius C. Burrows--located there.
Charles E. Stuart
Francis B. Stockbridge
Julius C. Burrows
The district is notable in architectural terms for its fine houses exemplifying the Greek and Gothic modes and the Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, and Colonial Revival styles.
The Bartholomew House at 832 Elmwood Street is Kalamazoo's finest example of a flank- gable, Greek Revival house.
832 Elmwood Street
The Amariah T. Prouty House at 302 Elm Street is an early Gothic cottage. It is trimmed with open-work bargeboards, label moldings over the windows, and a cluster-column veranda.
302 Elm Street
Representative of the district's Italianate structures is the cupola-crowned, four-square William A. Johnson House at 211 Woodward Avenue.
211 Woodward Avenue
The bracketed Davidson-McKee double house at 321 Stuart Avenue typifies the district's relatively small number of Second Empire houses.
321 Stuart Avenue
With its very steeply pitched roofs and pattern of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal planking, the Chappell Stewart House at 213 Elm Street Is an excellent example of the Stick style.
213 Elm Street
The district is particularly rich in fine examples of Queen Anne, such as the Bartlett-Upjohn House at 229 Stuart Avenue and the Taylor-Hatfield d-Sutherland House at 316-18 Stuart Avenue. Both houses have broad verandas, a multitude of gables, and corner towers.
229 Stuart Avenue
316-318 Stuart Avenue