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1905 — present
One firm built a quarter of the streetcar city: Whitcomb & Keller built more than 3,200 houses in some two dozen subdivisions across South Bend, and the firm's partner Fred Keller — elected mayor in 1913, in the government file's telling — donated most of the land for the northwest-side park that bears his name, and the neighborhood took the name with the park: Keller Park. The firm's other face is Sunnymede, on the city's east side, where its resident architect Clifford Stapp, engaged from 1917, designed in the period-revival manners; the Wayne Street neighborhood along Jefferson Boulevard, between Washington Street and Sunnymede Avenue, was designated a historic district in 1987. Keller's own 1905 house stands at 609 Portage Avenue in Chapin Park, one developer's plat inside another's — the builders of the neighborhoods lived in them.
Sources:
- Government, this history (Whitcomb & Keller's 3,200 houses; Fred Keller; the park land) — banked fragment
- Notre Dame, Building South Bend — Chapin Park (the Keller house, 609 Portage Avenue, 1905); East Wayne Street — building.southbend.nd.edu