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LEG 27 · ITEM 2 · RUN B #129 · AT BOUNDARY SIZE — THE SEAT IS SOUTH BEND'S
The county museum's first lasting home was a courthouse that had itself been moved: the Second St. Joseph County Courthouse, built 1853–55 at Washington and Main in South Bend, was picked up and moved in 1896 — turned around on its own block — to 112 South Lafayette Boulevard, to clear its site for the third courthouse. A decade later the county gave the building to the collecting society: the Northern Indiana Historical Society took the old courthouse as its headquarters in 1906, preparing the first floor for its use that year, and the building served as headquarters and local-history museum from 1906 until the society built its present museum in 1994 — eighty-eight years in a courthouse building, the audit's pattern figure matched by this county's own arithmetic. The sources conflict by one year at the end of the tenure, and the conflict prints whole: the city's Historic Preservation Commission staff report (1999) states the building "became the headquarters for the Northern Indiana Historical Society and remained as such until 1995," while IU South Bend's courthouse history states it "was used as a local history museum until 1994 when the Historical Society built a new museum adjacent to the former J.D. Oliver mansion." The museum's move is independently dated 1994 (item 4 below); 1994 is the tenure's end as a museum, with the society's full vacation of the building falling by 1995 on the city's record. The building survives, back at its original trade: it houses court offices today, and it stands on the National Register (listed 4 September 1970, ref. 70000007).
For Osceola itself the first-home question has no local answer, and that is printed, not passed over: no building in Osceola has ever been identified in any record reached as a museum home — the town's historical society mails from a post-office box (item 1), and no town directory, register entry or history gives it rooms. This ground's share of the courthouse museum is the county share: Penn Township material collected under the 1896 charter went to South Bend, as item 5 shows.
Verdict, item 2 — DUG (boundary size; the one-year end-of-tenure conflict printed whole).
Sources: South Bend Historic Preservation Commission staff report, COA application 1999-0208 (docs.southbendin.gov); IU South Bend African American Landmark Tour, "St. Joseph County Courthouses" (aalt.iusb.edu); Second St. Joseph County Courthouse, National Register record (ref. 70000007) and its 1970 nomination (npgallery.nps.gov); Clio entry for The History Museum. Searches run 11 Nov 2026.