The crossing at Michigan and Washington

1913–2010 · WHERE THE TRAILS MET

One downtown corner carried three roads at once: The southwest corner of Michigan and Washington streets is the most layered piece of ground in this section. The Michigan Road ran under it from the 1830s — Peter Johnson's Michigan Hotel stood on that very corner. The Lincoln Highway crossed it east–west from 1913, the Dixie Highway north–south on Michigan Street, and the Indiana Historical Bureau's marker, installed at the corner in 2010 by the Bureau with the GFWC/IFC Progress Club of South Bend and the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, is titled for the fact: "Highways intersected here." The marker's annotation states the local marking plainly: "The Highways intersect in South Bend where they are marked locally as Lincoln Way for the Lincoln Highway and Michigan Street for the Dixie Highway… a motorist today could turn onto Michigan (Dixie) at E. Washington Street." A bronze tablet on the Café Navarre building across the street honors the two trails' founders, Carl Fisher and Henry Joy. The corner's stack of commemorations — wagon road, two auto trails, marker and tablet — is the corridor history of the city in one intersection, and the streets themselves still do the work: Michigan Street is the Dixie Highway and the Michigan Road's course, and Washington Street carried the Lincoln Highway's downtown block.

Sources:

1. Indiana Historical Bureau, marker 71.2010.1 and its annotation — the title "Highways intersected here," the local markings (Lincoln Way, Michigan Street), the 2010 installation by the Bureau, the GFWC/IFC Progress Club of South Bend and the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association.
2. Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, turn-by-turn guide to the 1913 route — the state historical sign at Washington and Michigan depicting the crossing of the Dixie and Lincoln highways, and the Fisher–Joy bronze tablet on the Café Navarre façade.
3. Timothy Edward Howard, History of St. Joseph County (1907) — the Michigan Hotel on the southwest corner of Michigan and Washington, from this section's tavern entry.