Battle Creek, MI Summary

Battle Creek (population 55,400) is an industrial center and graingrowing area at the junction of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers in southern Michigan.

Known as “Cereal City,” Battle Creek is home to Kellogg’s cereals, and also manufactures pumps, motor vehicle parts, plastics, and paper. An 1825 fight between two land surveyors and two Native Americans here gave the river (and therefore the city) its name.

In the 1850s, the area was a center of intense abolitionist activity and an important stop on the Underground Railroad, the escape route for African-American slaves. Sojourner Truth, exslave, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist, lived here near the end of her life and is buried in Battle Creek’s Oak Hill Cemetery. Battle Creek also became headquarters for the Seventh Day Adventist religious group, which opened sanitariums here to promote temperance and health.

In 1876, physician John Harvey Kellogg joined the Western Health Reform Institute (founded on health principles advocated by Seventh Day Adventists) and spent the next 25 years developing this into a cutting-edge institution; known today as the Battle Creek Federal Center, it is open for visits and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Along with hydrotherapy and exercise, Dr Kellogg’s patients were given a vegetarian diet. By 1894, Kellogg had developed grain and nut products including a cereal-based flaked breakfast. Battle Creek became the location of cereal food manufacture when the doctor’s brother W. K. Kellogg, and sanitarium patient C.W. Post both formed companies to market cereal products. The world’s longest cereal table is set up here every year in June during the Cereal City Festival.

Battle Creek Linear Park is an 11-mile series of waterways and parks connected by a paved pathway; in the park are the Leila Arboretum and the Kingman Museum of Natural History. Other Battle Creek attractions include the Kimball House Museum (a Queen Anne style residence with exhibits relating to local health and medical history), Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, Binder Park Zoo with its Michigan Wetlands Encounter Trail, Willard Beach on Goguac Lake, and Fort Custer Recreation Area.

Battle Creek is off I-94 between Kalamazoo and Jackson, in Michigan’s heartland region, and is serviced by the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport. Lodging and dining options in the area are somewhat limited.