The Industrial Architecture — Plants, Breweries and Mills

1909 – present

The Studebaker survivors: The Studebaker plant's own record belongs to the Studebaker section; its architecture is entered here at the depth of what stands. Of the works that covered 225 acres in the 1920s, two buildings survive as the complex's monuments. The Administration Building at 635 South Main, designed by S. S. Beman of Chicago and opened in June 1909 — 149,000 square feet in concrete, its original fixtures substantially surviving — passed from the company to the city for one dollar after the 1963 closing, served as the school corporation's headquarters until the fall of 2006, and then stood empty: sold to a Phoenix owner in 2009, placed on the Historic Preservation Commission's 10 Most Endangered list in 2023, and taken under a redevelopment-commission agreement to roof and secure it in July 2024. It is a city local landmark, designated in 1992. Across Lafayette Boulevard, Building 84 of 1923, designed by Albert Kahn — six stories and a basement, more than 800,000 square feet, where bodies were built, painted, trimmed and finally assembled — never went wholly vacant, and in the 2010s passed to the developer Kevin Smith, who had already converted Union Station into a data center; by 2024 Smith was redeveloping nearly a million square feet of former Studebaker factory space, Building 84 among it, with data-center use established in part of the building. Most of the rest of the plant was demolished in the mid-2000s, and the cleared ground became Ignition Park. The station across the tracks — Union Station of 1928–29, Art Deco, by Fellheimer & Wagner, at $1.2 million — is the Trains section's building, and is cross-referenced here only as the plant district's third survivor.

The rest of the industrial stock: The register's industrial South Bend runs wider than one company. The Singer Manufacturing–South Bend Lathe Historic District, listed 18 February 1999, preserves the cabinet-works and lathe-works plant on Madison Street between Niles Avenue and the river — the industrial architecture of the sewing-machine age, whose firms are the Businesses and Industrial Revolution sections' subjects. The breweries stand as buildings in their own right: the Muessel-Drewry's Brewery at 1408 Elwood Avenue, listed 28 December 2000, and the South Bend Brewing Association at 1636 West Lincolnway, listed 16 September 2001. The Stephenson Underwear Mill at 322 East Colfax, listed 28 September 1995, and the O'Brien Electric Priming Company at 2001 West Washington, listed 28 December 1983, carry the smaller factory stock, and the W. N. Bergan–J. C. Lauber Company Building on East LaSalle (18 February 1999) the sheet-metal works. The city's own industrial plant is on the register too: the North Pumping Station at 830 North Michigan, listed 2 January 1997, and the St. Joseph County Infirmary at 3016 Portage Avenue, listed 15 June 2000 — the built record of work, and of the county's care for those who could not do it.

Sources:

1. Studebaker section of this history — the Administration Building's Beman design, 1909 opening, one-dollar sale, school-corporation years, 2009 sale, 2023 endangered listing and July 2024 agreement, and its local landmark designation of 1992 (Historic Preservation Commission Resolution 02-2023; City of South Bend Ordinance 8267-1992); Building 84's Kahn design, floor area and redevelopment.
2. Trains section of this history — Union Station, 1928–29, Fellheimer & Wagner, $1.2 million.
3. National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Joseph County — the Singer Manufacturing–South Bend Lathe district, the Muessel-Drewry's and South Bend Brewing Association listings, the Stephenson Mill, the O'Brien Electric Priming Company, the Bergan-Lauber Building, the North Pumping Station and the County Infirmary, with their dates and addresses.