The growth decades

1970–2000

Measured at the township line, the place grew eightfold in thirty years; measured at the CDP line, it arrived already large: Harris Township counted 2,860 people in 1970 and would count 24,397 in 2020 — most of that growth front-loaded into the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, when, in the trustee's words, subdivisions replaced corn fields and kept replacing them. The emblematic development of the turn is Knollwood, on the place's west side: the trade press, reporting in February 2025 that Knollwood Country Club — 36 holes, at 16633 Baywood Lane — had been acquired by the local Knollwood Golf Group LLC after standing on the market since July 2024, put the club at the approach of its fiftieth anniversary, which dates the club in its present form to about 1975, the heart of the subdivision decade; the buyers pledged that none of the 36 holes would be sold for development. The Census Bureau first drew the Granger CDP for the 1990 census, and the figure it opened with is the growth decades' sum: 20,241 people. The 1990s then added two-fifths again — 28,284 in 2000, up 39.7 percent, the fastest decade in the series. The texture of the growth matters to the government entry below: the township letter notes that wells and septic fields remained prevalent through the building boom, and that the City of Mishawaka was annexing Harris Township land at the place's southern edge even as the subdivisions filled — the CDP's southern boundary is a city line that moves.

Sources:

1. U.S. Census Bureau, decennial censuses of 1990 and 2000 (the CDP series as printed in the census-line entry below).
2. Harris Township reference record (the township's 2020 census count of 24,397); Lindsay, Granger Gazette, August 2020 (1970 count; wells and septic; Mishawaka annexation).
3. Club + Resort Business, February 11, 2025 (the Knollwood acquisition by Knollwood Golf Group LLC; the fiftieth-anniversary approach; the 36 holes).