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July 1936 — 1938
The Depression made the airport public: In July 1936 St. Joseph County voted to buy Bendix Field from the Bendix interests on a $210,000 bond issue, and the purchase was completed in 1937, making Bendix Field the first publicly owned airport in the area. The airport authority's own financial reports date the county era slightly differently — the FY2005 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report states the airport was "owned and operated by St. Joseph County from 1938" — and this record prints both datings: the vote and bond in July 1936, the transfer completed in 1937 by the press-derived account and county operation from 1938 by the authority's own. The purchase was fought over in its day; the Indiana Transportation History account of the transaction reports charges of fraud and political gamesmanship around the fight, and this record carries those reports as reports, attributed, not as findings. The name Bendix Field stayed on the field long after the county owned it — the county's airport flew under its founder's name, and under the plainer "St. Joseph County Airport," for the next three and a half decades.
Sources:
- Indiana Transportation History, "Aviation Around South Bend/Mishawaka" — the July 1936 county vote, the $210,000 bond issue, the purchase completed in 1937, and the reported fraud and gamesmanship charges around the purchase fight.
- St. Joseph County Airport Authority, FY2005 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (Indiana State Board of Accounts, in.gov/sboa) — the airport "owned and operated by St. Joseph County from 1938."