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South Bend raised its children in public. The trolley companies built them an amusement park on the river in 1880 and the railroads of childhood ran from there: a duck pond in Leeper Park that turned into Indiana's oldest zoo, a vaudeville palace downtown that changed its act every ten minutes, a public library that gave children rooms of their own and a librarian the photographs remember only as the Story Lady, drive-ins and roller rinks fixed here at the size the surviving directories allow, a children's theatre company inside the city's old community theatre, and, late in the story, two museums built for children alone and a ballpark that taught the minor leagues how a family park should feel. Some of this record is rich and some of it is directory thin, and the section prints each piece at the size its sources support. Nothing here is padded.
Playland Park: the trolley park on the river
1880 to [1960 / 1961] · Lincolnway East at the St. Joseph River
The trolley companies built it. South Bend's amusement park began in 1880, on the standard trolley park logic of its era: a pleasure ground at the end of the line, on the St. Joseph River where Ironwood Drive and Lincolnway East…
A duck pond in Leeper Park: where the zoo begins
1895 / 1902 · Leeper Park, on the river west of downtown
The park came first. Leeper Park is South Bend's first planned public park: the first of its ground was condemned in June 1895 for the city water works, the planned landscape is dated 1897 under city superintendent Herman Beyer…
Potawatomi Zoo: the city's zoo, at cross-reference size
[1912 / 1921] to today · 500 S. Greenlawn Ave., Potawatomi Park
Indiana's oldest zoo moved once, and the record brackets the move. The zoo's own timeline says that in 1921 the Potawatomi Zoo was established in Potawatomi Park, the riverbend ground it still occupies. Secondary accounts date…
The Palace and the Morris: a new act every ten minutes
Built 1921, opened 1922 · 211 N. Michigan St.
Vaudeville was a family bill. The Palace Theatre went up on North Michigan Street at a cost of one million dollars, built in 1921 and opened in 1922, its owners the Palace Theater Corporation, who raised the Palais Royale dance…
Rooms of their own: the library's children's services
1873 / 1928 to today · St. Joseph County Public Library
The children's rooms. South Bend's public library began as a reading room on Michigan Street in 1873, under the South Bend Library and Reading Room Association, and its children's history is fixed here at the size the library's…
Two rinks in the 1948 directory
1948 · Playland Roller Rink, 1741 Lincolnway East; Bock's Rink, 226 S. Lafayette Blvd.
Printed at directory size, because that is the size of the record. The national Directory of Roller Skating Rinks for 1948 lists exactly two rinks for South Bend, and this article claims those two listings and no more: the…
The drive-in census: four names, dates open
Mid-twentieth century · South Bend, Indiana
The screens are fixed; their dates are not. Cinema Treasures, the theatre-history census, lists three closed drive-ins for South Bend, and this article is their census entry: the Western Drive-In, two screens; the Chippewa…
South Bend Civic Theatre: the children's stage
1957 / 2009 to today · 403 N. Main St.
The company. South Bend Civic Theatre was founded in 1957 and is the oldest continuously operating community theatre in the South Bend and Mishawaka area. From 1968 it played most of its productions in The Firehouse at 701…
The Boys & Girls Clubs: fifty years, by the club's own count
Founding year open · O.C. Carmichael Jr. Youth Center, 502 E. Sample St.
The claim, printed as a claim. The Boys & Girls Clubs' own site for the northern Indiana corridor says it plainly: "For 50 years, the Boys & Girls Clubs have been in the forefront of youth development in St. Joseph County." This…
Glass houses on the riverbend: the Potawatomi Conservatories
1920s / 1960s / 1973 · 2105 Mishawaka Ave., Potawatomi Park
The working greenhouse came first. The conservatories in Potawatomi Park began as infrastructure: a Lord & Burnham greenhouse built in the 1920s as eight connected growing houses, raising the flowers and plantings for every park…
The East Race: whitewater through downtown
Opened 1984 · East Race Waterway, downtown riverfront
The millrace that came back as a playground. The channel began as industry: a millrace dug in 1843, by former Mayor Roger Parent's account, to carry the river's power to the factories of the west bank, later abandoned and filled…
The Cove: the ballpark that taught the minors how to feel
Opened July 2, 1987; first season 1988 · 501 W. South St.
Built for families on purpose. Stanley Coveleski Regional Stadium went up on the south edge of downtown for 11 million city dollars, construction completed in April 1987 and the gates opened July 2, 1987; its first tenant season…
HealthWorks!: a museum about the child's own body
Opened February 2000 · 111 W. Jefferson Blvd., downtown
A hospital built a children's museum. HealthWorks! Kids' Museum opened in February 2000 inside the Memorial Leighton HealthPlex in downtown South Bend: 12,000 square feet built by Memorial Health System to teach children in…
A museum for Finn: the Children's Museum of South Bend
Opened July 2021 · 2632 S. Michigan St.
Three mothers planned it; one boy's name is under it. In the summer of 2018, three friends from a Michiana mothers group, Emilie Utigard, Natalie Shafer and Julie Lovisa, began planning a children's museum for South Bend.…
Arcades and lanes: the county frame
Documented 2017 to today · Mishawaka and South Bend
The arcade moved to the shopping center. South Bend's dedicated arcade history is thin in citable sources, and this article prints the county frame honestly, the way the Fort Wayne leg printed its school-district material: the…
The Christmas tree, in three separate eras
1916 / 2014 / 2022 · Courthouse lawn, then downtown
Era one: the courthouse lawn. On December 22, 1916, the South Bend News-Times covered the city's "Third Annual Christmas Tree Celebration" on the Court House lawn: the tree donated by Mrs. J. C. Ranch from a farm north of the…
What South Bend built for its children
1880 to today
Two traditions run through the leg. The first is commercial and riverfront: a trolley company's amusement park teaching the city the habit of the family outing, a vaudeville palace changing its act every ten minutes, drive-ins…