Where Did Sprinkle Road Get Its Name?

Have you ever wondered about the origin of Sprinkle Road?

Nicholas Postelli posed this question on one of my favorite facebook pages, Vanished Kalamazoo,

Hi all! Does anyone know the origin story behind the naming of “Sprinkle Road”? We just had family in town who asked- and we live off of it! 😃

David Schuster commented, "there was only a sprinkle of cars back then."

Luke Sprinkle responded, "False."

Wait a minute.  Was his last name Sprinkle?  In fact, the comment thread was sprinkled with Sprinkles.  I'm getting a hunch that the road was named after the Sprinkle family.  Then I read Greg Gabry's comment,

Arthur J. Sprinkle (and later, his descendants) owned large parcels of land in that area around the turn of the last century. The road was named in honor of him and his family.  I believe the land that the GM plant was built on in the '60s was once Sprinkle family land.

I couldn't find anything on the internet to confirm or disprove Greg's theory.  I asked him for a source for this info. He responded,

Sorry I wish I could point you in the direction of a one-stop tell all, but I don't know of one. I was looking at old plat maps and directories as well as stories and comments posted here, along with family obituaries to piece it all together.

A few other responses on the facebook thread included:

Annette Taborn, "Was it that good black dirt celery growing land?"

Dan Cloud "Sprinkle road was named for a family who ran a gravel company in Kalamazoo, which later became Statler Reddy Mix Concrete Company."

Other's agreed the street is named after the Sprinkle family.

Apparently, there was even a song released in 1969 called "Sprinkle Road to Cork Street."  Read more about that and listen to the song by clicking here.

In summary, we can't find any documantation on-line to confirm the origin of Sprinkle Road's name.  However, it's looking very likely that it is named after there Sprinkles.