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Airports
Granger has never held the county's flagship airport, and this section does not pretend otherwise. The flagship — today's South Bend International Airport — stands in German Township, South Bend, across the line, and is imported here at boundary size with Granger's share stated plainly: the share is use, not ground. What Granger's own ground did hold, for the first three decades of powered flight in the county, was the original South Bend Airport itself, on Harris Township land north of State Road 23 and west of Fir Road — the field the record later renamed Cadet Field. Both stories are told whole below, with every conflict between sources printed as found.
The flagship succession: Bendix Field to South Bend International
1929–2014 · German Township, South Bend — boundary material, Granger share stated
The county's flagship airport began as a manufacturer's bet. In 1929 Vincent Bendix, of the Bendix Aviation Corporation, purchased 610 acres northwest of South Bend for a company airfield. Bendix Municipal Airport opened in 1933…
Airmail: the airway passed south of the county seat
1920s · transcontinental airway, Cleveland–Chicago leg
The airmail record for this ground is a documented negative at its core, and it is printed as one. The pilot directions preserved by the Airmail Pioneers for the Cleveland-to-Chicago leg of the transcontinental airway route the…
Cadet Field: the airport on Granger's own ground
1929–c. 1960 · Harris Township, north of State Road 23, west of Fir Road
Before Bendix Field, the county's air terminal stood in Harris Township, on ground now inside the Granger CDP's orbit. The site — north of State Road 23, west of Fir Road, at approximately 41.741, −86.168 — is fixed by Paul…
Earhart at Bendix Field, 1936
1936 · Bendix Field, South Bend — boundary size
The celebrity passage the record supports is a single documented stop, printed at exactly its documented size. The St. Joseph County Airport Authority's own history page records: "Amelia Earhart in 1936 when she landed her Lockheed Electra aircraft at Bendix field." The TIGHAR timeline for Earhart's Electra places the aircraft in California from September 24 to November 23, 1936, and then headed back east, "stopping in South Bend on the way to talk to Vince Bendix." The two records together support a late-November 1936 stop at Bendix Field, by the woman then the most famous aviator in the world, to talk to the man who had built the field. No larger claim — no speech, no ceremony, no Granger connection — is in the open record, and none is made here.
The regulated era: four carriers in 1957, first jets in 1967
April 1957 – 1979 · Bendix Field / Michiana Regional — boundary size
The mature regulated-era airport is timetable-dated. The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows four carriers serving South Bend, with weekday departures of North Central 10, United 9, Lake Central 6, and Trans World Airlines 3…
The ground growth, priced: acreage, runways, terminal, and the 2025 rebuild
1933–2025 · South Bend International Airport — boundary size
The flagship's physical growth is documented from the 610 acres Vincent Bendix bought in 1929 to a field that today covers 2,200 acres at an elevation of 799 feet. Its three runways, per the FAA record, are 9L/27R at 4,300 feet…
"International" as a build: customs, the inspection station, and the Liverpool 747
2014–2019 · South Bend International Airport — boundary size
The word "International" in the airport's April 23, 2014 name was a claim the authority then spent five years building into fact. U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing of general-aviation and corporate international…
Three modes at one terminal, and the passenger series
2000–2025 · enplanements and intermodal course — boundary size
South Bend International's standing claim is intermodal: the airport presents itself as the first truly multi-modal airport in the country, and the components are verifiable one by one. The South Shore Line's airport station…
The route map as of November 2026
Verified November 2026 · five carriers, seventeen nonstop destinations
The dated route map, verified November 2026, stands at five carriers. Allegiant serves Fort Lauderdale, Knoxville (from June 14, 2024), Las Vegas, Orlando/Sanford, Phoenix/Mesa, Punta Gorda, and St. Petersburg/Clearwater, with…
Second lives: cargo, the accident record, the small fields, and the boundary stated
1945–2026 · county airfields whole
The flagship's second lives are cargo and maintenance. FedEx Express flies to Memphis, with FedEx Feeder (CSA Air) to Indianapolis; UPS upgauged to an Airbus A300 for holiday cargo from November 24, 2020 (the authority's Partner…