Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Richland, MI

Richland is a village in Kalamazoo County, within Richland Township about 9 miles northeast of Kalamazoo, the county seat.

The village sits in the middle of what was once the Gull Prairie, a treeless upland maintained by natural and man-made fires that had Potawatomi villages nearby and, because little clearing was needed, was among the first areas of Kalamazoo County to be settled.

By the 1830s Richland was a thriving frontier village that even contended for the Kalamazoo County seat, losing out to the more centrally located village of Bronson, now Kalamazoo.

Lacking a stream for water power, Richland never developed significant industry and stayed a quiet farm community until the late 20th century, when it became a bedroom community for Kalamazoo.

Richland had 946 residents at the 2020 census, after growing about 26% in both the 2010 and 2020 census decades; the 2010 census counted 347 households.

The village is served by the Gull Lake Community Schools — including Richland Elementary, Thomas M. Ryan Intermediate, Gull Lake Middle School and Gull Lake High School — whose strong reputation has drawn new subdivisions to the surrounding farm country.

Brothers Charles S. May and Dwight May, both of whom served as lieutenant governors of Michigan in the 19th century, were raised in Richland.

Despite its small size of just over 1 square mile, Richland's village population has more than quadrupled since 1880, when the census counted 223 residents.