The Studebaker National Museum — where the presidents' carriages live

1966 – present collection; 2005 – present building · 201 Chapin Street

The fame: On Chapin Street, beside The History Museum, stands the building that holds what its executive director calls "the world's largest collection of presidential carriages" — the attribution is the museum's own, repeated by the area's visitor bureau, and the objects beneath it are specific. The barouche Abraham Lincoln rode to Ford's Theatre on the night of his assassination is here, bought by Clement Studebaker in 1889. So is the carriage that carried Lafayette on his 1824 farewell tour, bought in 1887; so are President Grant's Brewster landau and carriages of Presidents McKinley and Benjamin Harrison. Eight of the museum's vehicles have been designated treasures by the National Park Service. A wagon works in Indiana became, by the simple act of its president buying famous carriages while the events were still warm, the permanent address of the American presidency's wheeled relics — that is the fame, and it is documented object by object.

The collection's road: The Studebaker Corporation donated its historic collection to the City of South Bend in 1966, when the company closed; the gift is put at 33 vehicles in the visitor bureau's telling and 37 in Hemmings' history of the museum, and both figures stand here as printed there. The nonprofit museum dates to 1985; the present building — 55,000 square feet, shared in operation with The History Museum next door — opened in October 2005, holding a collection now of some 120 vehicles. The Studebaker history in this record carries the corporation's memory line whole, including the 1966 gift; the Museums section of this record owns the institution's own history when it is written. This entry carries the fame: four presidents' carriages, the Park Service's eight treasures, and the largest-such-collection claim at its attributed size.

Sources

1. WNDU, 16 February 2026 — Executive Director Pat Slebonick on the museum's presidential carriages; the eight vehicles designated treasures by the National Park Service; the 1966 donation of the collection to the city.
2. Hemmings — the history of the museum and the collection: Lafayette's 1824 farewell-tour carriage, purchased 1887; the Lincoln barouche purchased by Clement Studebaker in 1889; Grant's landau and the McKinley and Harrison carriages; 37 vehicles in the collection at the company's closing; the nonprofit museum created in 1985.
3. Visit South Bend Mishawaka — the museum at 201 Chapin Street, opened October 2005, 55,000 square feet beside The History Museum; the corporation's 33-vehicle donation of 1966; the collection grown to about 120 vehicles.
4. The Studebaker history in this record (Studebaker, stu-museum-xref) — the donation of the collection to the city in 1966.