August 21, 2006  

A “Delicious” Piece of Kalamazoo History
Unearthed at Construction Site

The Girl Scouts of Glowing Embers discovered a brass sign tracing back to a 1911 Kalamazoo drugstore hidden in the layers of dirt at the new Program and Training Center construction site on the corner of Crosstown and Maple. The brass sign, now discolored and rusted with age, is approximately two feet long and reads “Mattison Drug Company Whitman’s Chocolate.”

“I suspect that the sign was simply discarded on the site at Maple and Crosstown but there's no way to know how it got there,” said Tom Dietz, Curator of Research at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.

The Mattison store was founded in 1911 as VanOstrand and Mattison and located at 116 West Main, today's West Michigan on the site of the Radisson Hotel. According to a Kalamazoo Gazette article that appeared on October 18, 1925, the Mattison Drug Company had the “most complete line of toilet preparations and perfumes in Western Michigan” and boasted the first fountain service in the area.

In 1917, Walter Mattison organized a company and took over VanOstrand’s interest.  This company remained in charge of the store until it was purchased by Mr. Greene in 1919. The drugstore continued to stay in business until 1929.
The words “Whitman’s Chocolate” that appear on the sign also have historical significance. In 1907, Whitman’s began distributing directly to "better drug stores" and awarded franchises to local druggists, assuring them that Whitman's candies would be placed with only one druggist per town. This meant that Mattison was the only place in Kalamazoo that you would be able to find delicious Whitman’s chocolates.
Whitman's is one of the world's largest and oldest chocolate production companies. Originally a "confectionery and fruiterer shoppe" set up in 1842 by 19-year-old Stephen F. Whitman on a Philadelphia waterfront, Whitman's first became popular with traveling sailors and their wives. They would often bring imported fruits, nuts and cocoa from their trips back to Mr. Whitman so that he could make the popular European confections people craved in that era. Before long, Whitman's chocolates were popular all along the Northeastern section of the United States. Whitman's has since enjoyed more than 160 years of chocolate production. The company is now a part of Russell Stover Candies, the major supplier of boxed candy in the United States.

The Girl Scouts of Glowing Embers would like to thank the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, Public Library, and Russell Stovers for assisting in the search of the sign’s history.