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1882–1884 · Terre Haute & Logansport Railroad
Lakeville was chosen, and the choosing was contested. In 1882 the McKeen syndicate that owned the Terre Haute & Logansport determined to extend its road from Logansport to South Bend, sixty-seven miles, on grades no steeper than 26.4 feet to the mile with sixty-pound steel rails. The route was not a foregone conclusion. Vandalia officials proposed to build "to South Bend via Lakeville" on condition the right of way through the county and the entrance into South Bend be granted without expense to them (Logansport Journal, 9 June 1883, quoting the Indianapolis Journal); Plymouth offered $15,000 and its right of way; a competing route via Walkerton was invoked to induce Center Township, Marshall County, to vote a $30,000 subsidy tax in 1883 — it carried, 648 for to 447 against; and a January 1883 survey ran via Tyner City and North Liberty at an estimated saving of some $200,000 (South Bend Tribune via Logansport Journal, January 1883). The Lakeville route was the one built — a fact worth pausing on: the railroad map of the county's south tier, and with it Lakeville's eighty years as a crossing town, is the residue of an 1883 route fight that Walkerton and North Liberty lost. The contractors the record names are line-level, not segment-level: W. A. Ford held the bridge contract between Logansport and Kewanna; Captain Eaton graded toward Plymouth; the Terre Haute grader Tom Kenzer defaulted on a two-mile contract in February 1883. No carrier found names the contractor for the Lakeville segment itself (gap G-TR-10). At Lakeville the work met the ground this build knows from its land legs: in June 1883 the South Bend Register reported Captain Fitch, the Vandalia's chief engineer, "now at Lakeville probing the bottomless pit south of that place" — the marsh south of town that the township's farmers would spend the next half-century draining.
The contemporary newspaper course, compiled from the papers of the day, runs: in May and June 1883 track was laid from Logansport to Marmont on Lake Maxinkuckee, 33½ miles, turned over to the Vandalia's operation under lease that September; in November 1883, 10½ miles more were laid from Marmont to Plymouth, turned over in June 1884; and "in May and June this year, track was laid from Plymouth to Lakeville, 13 miles, and is now being fully ballasted. From Lakeville to South Bend is 10 miles, the grading of which is nearly completed, and the track will be laid at once and ballasted" (Indianapolis Journal, 7 August 1884). The stations opened on the extension between Plymouth and South Bend were listed that November: "Wooland, Lapaz, (B. & O. crossing), Lakeville and Jaquith" (Logansport Chronicle, 22 November 1884) — Wooland and Jaquith appear in no later station list reached, and the discrepancy prints flagged, not harmonised (gap G-TR-13). Through service began at the pattern the next article's succession inherits: from Monday 23 November 1884, two trains daily, except Sunday, Indianapolis to South Bend by way of Logansport, Marmont, Plymouth and Lakeville (Indianapolis Journal, 23 November 1884).
Conflict C109 — the line's built year, five carriers, printed whole. The banked spine and the line's reference article say the branch was "built in 1883." Against and beside that: a federal filing's history (Surface Transportation Board, Docket AB-290 (Sub-No. 349X), 2013, read first-hand) states "In 1884, the Terre Haute and Logansport Railroad extended its line from Logansport to South Bend"; the Pennsylvania Railroad records' archival summary likewise dates the Logansport–South Bend construction to 1884; a Marshall County history (McDonald, 1908, reached at snippet strength) dates the completion "from Logansport by way of Maxinkuckee Lake, Plymouth and La Paz to South Bend, in the fall of 1883 and spring of 1884"; Howard (1907) dates "the extension in 1884 and 1885, of the Vandalia railroad system from Logansport, by way of Lake Maxinkuckee, Plymouth and Lakeville, to South Bend"; and the newspaper course above phases the work May 1883 (Logansport–Marmont) to November 1884 (finished to South Bend). The build's resolution, printed as such: 1883 is true of the Logansport–Marmont portion only; the Lakeville segment is an 1884 fact on every carrier that dates it separately. The single year "1883" does not survive for this town's ground, and the Story of Lakeville section's shorthand stands flagged for assembly (DELTA-LK5-2).
Principal sources: "History and Genealogy of Lake Maxinkuckee," Vandalia Railroad Part 2, 1883–1884 (a compilation of contemporary newspaper items, quoted verbatim, read first-hand); STB Docket No. AB-290 (Sub-No. 349X) filing, 17 October 2013 (read first-hand); Howard (1907), Ch. VI §III §5; ArchiveGrid summary of Pennsylvania Railroad records (RG 3).