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Battle Creek Essential Info

Overview

Battle Creek is a city in Calhoun County, West Michigan. 2003 estimated population 53,827. The city annexed several nearby areas in the 1980s and 90s, and now has an area of 43 square miles, much of it sparsely-populated.

Well known for its breakfast cereal industry (Kelloggs and Post both started here), and the Sanitarium. Also know for it's involvement in the abolitionists movement and underground railroad, and for it becoming the home of Sojurner Truth. Battle Creek was also the birthplace of the Seventh-Day Adventists Church, with a historic village for it being found in town. The city was prosperous for much of the twentieth century, but like many small Midwestern cities, manufacturing jobs have declined in number and wages have stagnated recently. Kellogg Cereal, which supported the now-closed Cereal City attraction, has been especially hard-hit.

The city is located next to Fort Custer, a large National Guard base. Part of the old Fort Custer army base is now a State Park.

Description is available from Wikitravel under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. A list of contributors is available at the original article.

Basics

Best Time To Go

Apr-Sep

Current Time

Current Weather

30 °F

Clear

Fun Facts

  1. The Kellogg Company has made Battle Creek the Cereal Capital of the World. The Kellogg brothers accidentally discovered the process for producing flaked cereal products and sparked the beginning of the dry cereal industry.
  2. Battle Creek was named for a skirmish between a federal government land survey party led by Colonel John Mullett and two Native Americans.
  3. Battle Creek was home to the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was a health resort based on the health principles advocated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, most notably associated with John Harvey Kellogg.
  4. In 1982, at the insistence of the Kellogg Company, the city annexed Battle Creek Township, nearly doubling the city's population. Kellogg's even went so far as to threaten moving their headquarters if the annexation failed to occur
  5. Battle Creek figured prominently in the early history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It was the site of this Protestant sect's founding convention in 1863.

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