Today we’d like to introduce you to Doug Kadzban.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I found myself out of work in late 2019, and decided to spend my free time at the Herrick Library in Holland, Michigan. Out of idle curiosity, I started perusing the local history section and doing research, when I realized that I had studied history in college and how much I loved doing research on local topics. I eventually set up a routine for myself – apply for jobs, do interviews, and take care of unemployment requirements in the morning; spend my afternoons in the library. I found a notebook and folder, just like when I was in school, and began brainstorming topics, talking to folks around town, and recording which topics were easy to research using the resources at the library. Eventually, I met a few folks at the Holland City Archives, and at the history department at Hope College and got a few in-person interviews. During the CoVid era, the library was closed and in-person interviews were quite frowned upon, so I began utilizing online resources!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Hate to call it a struggle, but it was incredibly easy to put all the time and effort required into research and writing when I was unemployed. I enrolled in a few community college courses, all the while continuing the ol’ job applications and interviews. Once I reached gainful employement again, my free time dried up and it became harder and harder to devote time to the blog. I stopped posting once a week, and got down to about once a month. I had to give myself more softball topics, and since one of my favorite niches of history has always been the everyday persons’ perspective, I started a classification of blog post that I call “Future History,” which is me opining on current events.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My love of local history was sparked at Northern Michigan University, taking “History Of The UP,” with Dr. Russell Magnaghi. It was this class that inspired me to start Tulip City Dispatch. While studying at Northern, I was able to have one of my research papers published into the Central UP Archives, which was a brief history of hockey in Marquette County. I was able to to get 2 in-person interviews with a few Marquette hockey legends, which was really cool.
Beyond that, I was a staff writer on my high school newspaper at Jenison High School. I’d always wanted to investigate the urban legend of a roller rink underneath a local fabric store. Through Tulip City Dispatch, I was able to reach out to Michael Early of Alva Skateboards and get a really solid interview with him about not the roller rink, but the skatepark that he designed and built in the basement of Field’s Fabrics. I was excited to make contact with him, confirm the rumors and urban legends, and even get ahold of a few others who were involved in the process!
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Holland has Tulip Time. The information available to tourists is plentiful, and has been well-covered throughout the years. What’s most important to Tulip City Dispatch is going deeper than the information available to tourists in Tulip Time; getting the weird or obscure stories, digging into urban myths and legends, and exploring local happenings.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tulipcitydispatch.blogspot.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tulipcitydispatch/
- Other: https://bsky.app/profile/tulipcitydispatch.bsky.social
