- Battle Creek displaced a community known as ‘The Bottoms’ to control flooding near downtown
- Finished in 1961, the concrete tunnel is now the target of demolition efforts to return Kalamazoo River to its natural state
- Many city residents are skeptical the plan will ever get off the ground
More than 60 years ago, Battle Creek did more than protect downtown from flooding when it built a concrete channel to control the Kalamazoo River.
The project, like many urban renewal efforts nationwide, also displaced residents of a thriving Black and working-class neighborhood known as The Bottoms.
The construction of the “concrete river” in 1961 destroyed the neighborhood that was home to 7,500, Calhoun County’s first Black teacher and the bustling Hamblin Community Center that hosted dances, meetings and sports events…