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By 1929 — closed by 1960
South Bend's first airport was not the airport: Before Bendix Field existed, the city's air terminal stood six miles northeast of downtown, north of State Road 23 and west of Fir Road, on ground now covered by a Granger neighborhood. The Commerce Department's Airway Bulletin of 16 January 1929 describes it as a municipal airport owned and operated by the City of South Bend: a square, sandy turf field of 240 acres with a 3,200-foot east–west landing strip. The South Bend Tribune's retrospective of 1 April 1973 remembered "four hangars, fairly good runways for that era, and was the principal air terminal for South Bend" in the years when Bendix Field was still being built. In the Second World War the field took the name it died under: "Today will mark the official opening of Cadet field, formerly known as the old St. Joseph county airport," the Tribune reported on 9 August 1942, as the field turned to pilot training. The August 1944 sectional chart still showed it as a commercial and municipal field; a 1952 aerial photograph shows three unpaved runways and eight hangars; the 1957 sectional still drew a 2,500-foot unpaved runway; and the 1960 aerial shows the field closed. WSBT's 2012 report, "Granger Neighborhood Was Original South Bend Regional Airport," walked the streets that replaced it. One confusion in the record is printed rather than resolved: 1940s press attached the name "St. Joseph County Airport" to this northeast field even though the county had bought Bendix Field, to the west, in 1937–38 — the county's airport name appears in the record on both grounds in the same years, and it migrated west permanently only as the northeast field faded.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Commerce, Airway Bulletin, 16 January 1929 — the municipal airport described: city-owned and operated, 240 acres, 3,200-foot east–west strip; via Paul Freeman, "Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Northern Indiana" (airfieldsfreeman.com), with the 1944 and 1957 sectional charts, the 1952 aerial (three unpaved runways, eight hangars) and the 1960 aerial showing the field closed.
- South Bend Tribune, 1 April 1973 (retrospective) and 9 August 1942 (the Cadet Field opening) — via Indiana Transportation History, "Aviation Around South Bend/Mishawaka" (intransporthistory.home.blog).
- WSBT, Kelly Stopczynski, 6 February 2012 — "Granger Neighborhood Was Original South Bend Regional Airport."