The road through South Bend: Michigan Street and Michigan Avenue

1834–PRESENT · THE COURSE AND ITS SURVIVALS

The road is still the street: Timothy Edward Howard's county history, written in 1907 within living memory of the road's wagon era, fixes its course through the county: "The road runs almost in a direct line from the crossing of the Wabash at Logansport to the southern bend of the St. Joseph, passing through Plymouth, Lakeville and South Bend… From South Bend the course turned to the west, so as to reach Michigan City by the most direct route. Michigan street and Michigan avenue mark the course of the Michigan road through South Bend. This section of the road was finished in 1834 and 1835." The street names are the survival: the road's name is on the city's main north–south street because the road is under it. Westward, the road left the bend through New Carlisle and Rolling Prairie toward the lake — the street through New Carlisle is Michigan Street to this day, and the Historic Michigan Road byway runs with it.

Before the road existed, the trail from the south had swung west through what became Liberty and Greene townships to avoid the lakes, marshes and heavy timber on the direct line the road afterward took; the road's straightness was the improvement. The modern survivals south of the city are numbered as well as named: south of the St. Joseph Valley Parkway the old road is signed State Road 931, and it dead-ends where the new US 31 freeway of 2014 merges into the corridor — the wagon road ending at the freeway's shoulder. One published reconstruction of the road's downtown course, drawn from the road-survey record, carries it out of downtown along present Lincolnway West to LaSalle Street and then onto Michigan Street; Howard's street-naming testimony above is the older witness, and the two are printed together rather than reconciled.

Sources:

1. Timothy Edward Howard, History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), roads chapter — the course through Plymouth, Lakeville and South Bend, the westward turn to Michigan City, "Michigan street and Michigan avenue mark the course of the Michigan road through South Bend," the 1834–35 finishing of this section, and the pre-road trail's western swing through Liberty and Greene townships.
2. The Indiana Lincoln Highway Association's turn-by-turn guide to the 1913 route — Michigan Street through New Carlisle, where the Lincoln Highway runs with the Michigan Road Historic Byway.
3. Jim Grey's survey of the Michigan Road in St. Joseph County — the road intact save a slight detour on South Bend's south side, signed State Road 931 south of the parkway, dead-ending at the new US 31 merge; and his reconstruction of the downtown course by Lincolnway West and LaSalle Street, printed here as the modern survey's reading against Howard's.