Battle Creek, city in Calhoun County, southern Michigan, at the junction of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo rivers. It is an industrial center in a grain-growing area. The city is famous for its large breakfast cereal industry; other manufactures include pumps, auto parts, processed food, plastics, and paper and wire products. The Battle Creek Health Center (1866) and a community college are in the city. The community, settled in 1831, takes its name from the Battle Creek River, site of a disagreement in 1825 between two surveyors and two Native Americans. Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and women's rights activist, is buried here. Battle Creek was an important “station” on the Underground Railroad, an escape route for black slaves. Physician John Harvey Kellogg, who became superintendent of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in 1876, developed grain and nut products for the vegetarian diet of its patients. His brother, W. K. Kellogg, and a sanitarium patient, C. W. Post, formed cereal companies in the city in the early 1900s. Battle Creek was incorporated as a city in 1859; in 1982, the city consolidated with nearby Battle Creek Township, gaining its population of about 22,000. Population 35,724 (1980); 53,540 (1990); 53,364 (2000).
