Kindleberger Park

On July 28, 1930, Jacob and Lucinda Kindleberger donated thirty-eight acres of land to create a park for the recently founded village of Parchment. “Uncle Jake” Kindleberger was president of a paper mill, the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Company (KVP). The park was a central part of his effort to form a mill and village that he saw as “models for the world.” Parchment’s village commission voted to name the park after the Kindlebergers in January 1931. Despite the Great Depression, park construction began in 1932 under the leadership of KVP. Employees dug ditches, planted trees and constructed roads. Volunteers from the local Boy Scouts and garden clubs also worked on the park. At the park dedication on June 17, 1933, KVP’s baseball team broke in the new diamond with a home game victory. The Parchment News reported nearly six thousand attendees.

[Back]: At its founding in 1933, Kindleberger Park featured walking paths, tennis and shuffleboard courts and a sunken garden. The park quickly became a central part of village life. Industrial- and city-league baseball games, the annual Fourth of July celebration and concerts by local bands drew large crowds. In winter, visitors ice-skated on flooded tennis courts and sledded down Scout Hill. By 1955 the park’s care had shifted from the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Company to the City of Parchment. The community continued to hold new events here, fulfilling Jacob Kindleberger’s goal of benefitting “the future generations” through his park. Little League teams began using the ball diamonds in the mid-1950s. The annual Kindleberger Summer Festival of the Performing Arts began in 1982, and in 2007 a new band shell was built on Scout Hill.