KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — There is a patriotic item on Tuesday night’s Kalamazoo City Commission agenda.
Commissioners will be asked to approve the spot in Bronson Park for a statue of Abraham Lincoln.
Kalamazoo is the only place in Michigan that The Great Emancipator ever spoke, and the rally was held in Bronson Park.
Lincoln was here in 1856, when he was just a beardless attorney who was building a reputation in the newly formed Republican Party. He was invited to speak against slavery and for presidential candidate John C. Fremont.
City staff is recommending a location for the statue just north of the center of the park.
The Lincoln Project Steering Committee still has to raise the money, submit a design for the statue and a plan for maintenance to the city’s ad hoc committee on monuments, markers and plaques.
Bronson Park already has a state historical marker that celebrates Lincoln’s appearance. It’s located south east of the Rotary Stage.
