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Opened 1875
Lead: The Grand Central Hotel at 114–116 South Michigan Street was built and owned by Daniel M. Shively and opened in 1875 under its first proprietor, Henry C. Knill. The house holds a first in the city's building record: in May 1879 the Grand Central introduced the passenger elevator to South Bend — the first house in the city to carry its guests up by machine — and it remained the only hotel in South Bend with an elevator until the new Oliver Hotel rose twenty years later with its own. A single machine, in Leeper's telling, marks the line between the tavern-era house, climbed on foot, and the modern hotel, ridden to.
The Grand Central's later names track its trade down the century: the Reynolds House, the Titus House, and by 1907 the Columbia.
Sources:
- Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1, Leeper's hotel reminiscences, read first-hand.