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Government
1865 – today
The whole line: Thirty-three men have held the office; no woman has been elected mayor of South Bend — the 1971 election, in which Janet Allen stood as the Republican nominee, remains the closest a woman has come in the record. The early terms ran short — George's three years were worked across the canvasses of the 1860s — and lengthened as the state's municipal law settled: by the early twentieth century the four-year term was the pattern, and Fogarty's eight years (1902–1910) stood as the city's longest service until Kernan's nine, which Luecke's fifteen then surpassed. Two mayors entered mid-term by succession — Bruggner on Voorde's death in 1960, Luecke on Kernan's resignation in 1997 — and one, Voorde, died in office. Every mayor since Jerry Miller's election in 1971 has been a Democrat; Lloyd M. Allen, elected in 1963 and re-elected in 1967, is the last Republican to have won the office.
| No. | Mayor | Administration | Party | On the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | William G. George | 1865–1868 | Republican | First mayor; drafted the incorporation papers and was elected by common consent. |
| 2 | Louis Humphreys | 1868–1872 | Republican | The city's doctor: Lincoln's medical inspector, first city health officer, then mayor. |
| 3 | William Miller | 1873–1876 | Republican | Third mayor; the record holds two William Millers of the first council, and telling them apart is a standing difficulty of the early file. |
| 4 | Alexander N. Thomas | 1877–1878 | Republican | One year in the record. |
| 5 | Lucius G. Tong | 1878–1880 | Republican | A Notre Dame man of Father Sorin's era; remembered in the local telling as much for his poetry as his politics. |
| 6 | Levi J. Ham | 1880–1884 | Democratic | A physician who took the office at 75 — the city's oldest mayor. |
| 7 | George W. Loughman | 1884–1888 | Republican | Railroad freight agent, building-and-loan and insurance president, fire-crew foreman — and mayor. |
| 8 | William H. Longley | 1888–1892 | Democratic | Four years across the boom of the late 1880s. |
| 9 | David R. Leeper | 1892–1894 | Democratic | Two years. |
| 10 | D. B. J. Schafer | 1894–1898 | Republican | Four years through the depression of the 1890s. |
| 11 | Schuyler Colfax III | 1898–1902 | Republican | Son of Vice President Schuyler Colfax; the city's youngest mayor; the 1902 City Hall opened in his term. |
| 12 | Edward J. Fogarty | 1902–1910 | Democratic | Eight years — the longest tenure of the city's first century, unmatched until 1997. |
| 13 | Charles L. Goetz | 1910–1914 | Democratic | Four years. |
| 14 | Fred W. Keller | 1914–1918 | Independent | The city engineer elected as an independent; afterward "Mr. Real Estate," builder of thousands of South Bend homes. |
| 15 | Franklin R. Carson | 1918–1922 | Republican | Took office in January 1918, in the last year of the Great War. |
| 16 | Eli F. Seebirt | 1922–1926 | Republican | Four years of the Studebaker boom. |
| 17 | Chester R. Montgomery | 1926–1930 | Democratic | His term closed as the Depression opened. |
| 18 | William Riley Hinkle | 1930–1935 | Democratic | Five years across the worst of the Depression. |
| 19 | George W. Freyermuth | 1935–1938 | Republican | Three years. |
| 20 | Jesse I. Pavey | 1938–1945 | Democratic | Seven years; the wartime mayor of the Studebaker arsenal years. |
| 21 | F. Kenneth Dempsey | 1945–1947 | Democratic | Two years, into the peace. |
| 22 | George A. Schock | 1947–1952 | Democratic | Five years of the postwar building boom. |
| 23 | John Alden Scott | 1952–1956 | Republican | One term; the last Republican before Allen, in the city's peak decade. |
| 24 | Edward F. Voorde | 1956–1960 | Democratic | Re-elected 1959; died in office 2 September 1960, in an automobile accident. |
| 25 | Frank J. Bruggner | 1960–1964 | Democratic | The city controller who succeeded Voorde; the Studebaker closing broke in his last month in office. |
| 26 | Lloyd M. Allen | 1964–1972 | Republican | The city judge who inherited the closing; urban renewal, the County-City Building, the Notre Dame annexation fight. The last Republican mayor. |
| 27 | Jerry Miller | 1972–1976 | Democratic | Won the office in 1971; the Century Center project broke ground in his term; lost his own primary in 1975. |
| 28 | Peter J. Nemeth | 1976–1980 | Democratic | Unseated an incumbent in the primary; presided over the Century Center's opening in 1977. |
| 29 | Roger O. Parent | 1980–1988 | Democratic | Two terms: the East Race Waterway, Coveleski Stadium, the Studebaker Corridor designation. |
| 30 | Joe E. Kernan | 1988–1997 | Democratic | The comptroller-mayor: the College Football Hall of Fame, three elections, then lieutenant governor — and governor in 2003. |
| 31 | Stephen J. Luecke | 1997–2012 | Democratic | Appointed to succeed Kernan, then elected three times; fifteen years, the longest tenure in the city's history; the Morris restored. |
| 32 | Pete Buttigieg | 2012–2020 | Democratic | Elected at 29; 1,000 Properties in 1,000 Days, Smart Streets; ran for president from a Studebaker building; then U.S. Secretary of Transportation. |
| 33 | James Mueller | 2020– | Democratic | Buttigieg's chief of staff; re-elected 2023; opened the city's own City Hall in 2025. |
Sources:
- The History Museum (South Bend), "List of South Bend Mayors" — the roster of names, order and tenure years this table follows, as carried in the standard references.
- The mayoral-election record of South Bend (election accounts, 1865–2023) — first election 1865; the elections of 1963, 1967, 1971, 1975 and the successions of 1960 and 1997 checked against it.
- City of South Bend — Mueller as the thirty-third mayor, sworn in 1 January 2020.