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Original 1904 Planting Plan
for the Western State Normal School
After the Kalamazoo community offered twenty-four possible sites for the new Western State Normal School to the Michigan State Board of Education, the Board narrowed the selection down to four, and then hired the nationally-known landscape firm, Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, to recommend the final site. Upon the firm's written recommendation, the Board selected Prospect Hill on November 27, 1903.
The architect selected for the project, E. W. Arnold, designed the initial Western State Normal School building, the Administration Building, along with a draft of a quadrangle of potential future buildings. The Olmsted Brothers used the Arnold quadrangle plan to compose a landscape, or planting, plan for the entire 20-acre site. The plan can be seen below.
The Planting Plan included a comprehensive list of plants sorted into twenty-seven categories or groups, with each category's location clearly labelled on the Planting Plan. The complete Plan included terraced lawns and several elaborate sets of stairs leading down to Davis Street and Oakland Drive.
The original Olmsted Brothers Planting Plan was printed on linen cloth, and measured approximately 85 inches wide and 30 inches high. The delicate 100 year-old document was reproduced by photocopying it in sections and then piecing the sections together.
Pass pointer over plan to view comments. Click
to view enlarged plan
Comparison
of Planting Plan with 1925 Campus Map
