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The Rotary Club of South Bend, 1914 — the other clubs at their documented size
Rotary: The Rotary Club of South Bend was among the earliest Rotary clubs in the world. Rotary's own archives fellowship, in its list of the first clubs, places South Bend as club number 105, among the six clubs numbered 100 to 105 whose selection was determined on 1 March 1914. The club's documented civic gift stands downtown in bronze and stone: in 1928 the club erected the marker at the site of Alexis Coquillard's trading post inscribed "On this site South Bend was founded." A service club's charitable work is mostly member by member and year by year, and the marker is the gift the record preserves whole; the club itself continues.
Kiwanis and Lions: The Kiwanis record in South Bend is documented at one point with certainty: a South Bend (Downtown) Kiwanis club existed by 1995, when it sponsored the re-chartering of Notre Dame's Circle K club on 12 September 1995, in that club's own history. The South Bend Kiwanis club's charter date, and the South Bend Lions club's, are not established in the sources reached for this account. They are not supplied from the national organizations' founding years — Kiwanis 1915, Lions 1917 are Detroit's and Chicago's dates, not South Bend's — and the gap is printed as the Fort Wayne account printed its own: the clubs' local charters await their clubs' own archives.
Sources:
- Rotary Global History Fellowship, first-clubs list — South Bend as club No. 105, among the clubs whose selection was determined 1 March 1914.
- Historical Marker Database (HMdb) — the 1928 "On this site South Bend was founded" marker, erected by the Rotary Club of South Bend at the Coquillard post site.
- Notre Dame Circle K, club history — the South Bend (Downtown) Kiwanis club as sponsor of the 12 September 1995 re-charter.