24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Parchment, MI

Parchment is a small city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, sitting just northeast of Kalamazoo on the east bank of the Kalamazoo River, and it takes its name from the parchment paper once manufactured there.

The city began in 1909 as a company town of the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Company, founded by Jacob 'Uncle Jake' Kindleberger in an abandoned sugar-beet factory on the river.

Parchment is known as 'The Paper City,' and for decades the mill dominated local life — the company rented out more than fifty houses to workers, financed their home purchases, and at its height accounted for over 90 percent of the community's assessed property value.

The mill's first workers lived in tents beside the plant before company houses and employee lots were laid out around it.

Parchment was incorporated as a village in 1930 and then as a city in 1939, when voters approved city status by a lopsided 183-to-1 margin, making it the youngest city in Kalamazoo County.

In 1932 Kindleberger donated about 40 acres of hilly land in the center of town that became Kindleberger Park, dedicated on June 17, 1933, before a crowd of some 6,000 people.

The paper mill passed through a succession of owners — Sutherland Paper, the Brown Company, James River and finally Crown-Vantage — before papermaking in Parchment ended for good in 2000, eliminating 249 jobs.

The 2020 census counted 1,926 people in Parchment, up from 1,804 in 2010, living in 823 households with 879 housing units in a city of less than one square mile.

In July 2018, Parchment made national news when PFAS contamination was discovered in its drinking water at 1,587 parts per trillion, triggering a 'Do Not Drink' advisory for about 3,100 customers, a declared state of emergency, and a permanent switch to Kalamazoo's water system, with the advisory lifted on August 27.

In 2021, 3M and Georgia-Pacific agreed to contribute a combined $11.9 million to settle class-action claims brought on behalf of people served by Parchment's water system when the contamination was discovered.