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Noorman Family Kalamazoo Avenue & 44th Street
The Store & PropertyIt is known that a train from The Grand River Valley Railroad (1870) operation stopped at the corner of 44th Street and Kalamazoo Avenue at some point to drop off supplies. Until 1904, there was a depot on the southeast corner of the intersection, to the northeast of the track. It was torn down in that year by Bostwick Bowen, and some of the blocks used to build the two room Bowen School.
The Noorman family is associated with the 44th Street and Kalamazoo Avenue corner starting in about 1910, when the large white house just south of the Shell Station location - as of year 2011 - was built in 1910. Jacob Noorman bought the general store and settled in. A new store was built in 1927. The image to the right is the layout of 44th Street and Kalamazoo Avenue as of about the year 1900, excluding that the Town & Country shopping area along with the Shell gas station would not have been there. Below are some views of the store on the northwest corner. |
The Family
This was Jacob and Jacoba Noorman's house, which is on the southwest corner of 44th Street and Kalamazoo Ave., right behind where the Shell Gas Station is now. Their store was located on the northwest corner of 44th Street and Kalamazoo, where the Towne & Country Shopping Center is located today.
None of the photographs below are dated. Based on marriage records, one guesses the first two photos and the last (the largest) are from around 1920. Jacob Noorman is not in the black-and-white photograph. If it is assumed that he has passed at the time of the photo.
None of the photographs below are dated. Based on marriage records, one guesses the first two photos and the last (the largest) are from around 1920. Jacob Noorman is not in the black-and-white photograph. If it is assumed that he has passed at the time of the photo.