The named-trail stock: what the county's trail guides actually name at Bendix Woods and Spicer Lake

item 7 — the named interpretive trails inside the township's two county parks, name by name

One name in this stock is not a footpath, and the guides say so if they are read whole: the Studebaker-Bendix Heritage Trail is a driving heritage tour — approximately 90 minutes by car in both of its publishers' accounts — running through a dozen South Bend industrial sites from the Studebaker blacksmith-shop site and factory grounds to the Bendix headquarters and Bendix Field, and ending, for this township, at Bendix Woods County Park, which the county's 2019–2023 master plan calls "a destination site on the Studebaker-Bendix Heritage Trail." Inside the park gate, the treadway stock is named on the county's own 2026 trail map, and it is a real stock: Raccoon Run; the Big Tree Trail (0.35 mi) and Lower Big Tree Trail through the beech-maple preserve woods; the Black Forest Trail (0.1 mi); the Deneve Wildlife Loop (0.5 mi); the Whispering Woods Loop (0.2 mi); the Van Paris Loop (0.2 mi); the Hardwoods Loop (0.3 mi); the Central Trail (0.53 mi); the Sauk Trail; and the Lookout Trail — with a hiking trail, in the master plan's own line, passing through the letters of the STUDEBAKER tree sign itself. At Spicer Lake the county brochure names its stock with the same care: the Pfeil Family Trail, a crushed-limestone trail leading to the Stankus Observation Deck over a buttonbush swamp — the deck's name carrying Tom Stankus, of the preserve's founding generation, into the trail stock; the Boardwalk, the quarter-mile accessible boardwalk into the wetland, the preserve's signature treadway; the Glacier Flats Trail, named for the glacial flats and leading to the Buttonbush Swamp observation platform (a 1.5-mile loop in the Outbound's trail account, which also carries the boardwalk at 0.5 mile round trip against the county's quarter-mile one-way figure — printed unreconciled); and on the preserve's trail map the further named set: the Lancaster Lake Trail to the Lancaster Lake platform, the Wetland Trail, the Woodland Trail, the Old Field Trail, the Sassafras Ridge Trail, the Maple Woods Trail and the Hawthorn Trail. No trail in either park is published by the county under an explicit "interpretive trail" label in the guides read; the interpretive function rides the names, the decks and the nature centers' programs, and the stock prints as the guides name it.

Sources:

1. Studebaker National Museum (studebakermuseum.org), Studebaker-Bendix Heritage Trail, and Visit South Bend Mishawaka, "Explore the Studebaker-Bendix Heritage Trail" (2025) — the tour's form (about 90 minutes by car), its site list, and Bendix Woods County Park, 56960 Timothy Rd., New Carlisle, as a stop.
2. St. Joseph County Parks, Five Year Master Plan 2019–2023, Bendix Woods page — "a destination site on the Studebaker-Bendix Heritage Trail"; "A hiking trail passes through the letters."
3. St. Joseph County Parks, Bendix Woods Trail Map 2026 — the named hiking stock and printed distances: Raccoon Run; Big Tree Trail 0.35 mi; Lower Big Tree Trail; Black Forest Trail 0.1 mi; Deneve Wildlife Loop 0.5 mi; Whispering Woods Loop 0.2 mi; Van Paris Loop 0.2 mi; Hardwoods Loop 0.3 mi; Central Trail 0.53 mi; Sauk Trail; Lookout Trail.
4. St. Joseph County Parks, Spicer Lake Nature Preserve brochure — the quarter-mile boardwalk; the Pfeil Family Trail (crushed limestone) to the Stankus Observation Deck; the Glacier Flats Trail to the Buttonbush Swamp platform; the Lancaster Lake Trail; the trail-map name set (Wetland, Woodland, Old Field, Sassafras Ridge, Maple Woods, Hawthorn).
5. The Outbound, "Hike the Glacier Flats Trail at Spicer Lake Nature Reserve" — the Glacier Flats Trail as a 1.5-mile loop; the boardwalk at 0.5 mile round trip (cross-check strength, printed unreconciled against the county's quarter-mile).