Four buildings in one November

November 1983

The building wave: In November 1983 the library opened four new branch buildings in a single month — Tutt and River Park first, then Western and LaSalle — as its history records. The Western Branch's dedication program, preserved in the library's own Michiana Memory collection, dates its opening precisely: the grand opening and dedication of the Western Branch was held on Sunday, 20 November 1983, at four o'clock. The program names the machinery behind the wave: the architect was LeRoy Troyer & Associates, the construction manager Sollitt Construction Co., and the buildings were delivered through the South Bend Public Library Leasing Corporation — the lease-financing vehicle through which the library built without a bond issue of its own. The 1983 buildings were of a family — the library later wrote of the Western Branch that it "was built identically to a few other branches" — and they housed the branch system for the next forty years, until the Our Next Chapter renovations of the 2020s.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County Public Library, "History of the St. Joseph County Public Library" — the four branch buildings of November 1983 and their order.
2. Western Branch grand opening and dedication program, 20 November 1983 (Michiana Memory, Library History collection) — the date, LeRoy Troyer & Associates, Sollitt Construction Co., and the South Bend Public Library Leasing Corporation.
3. St. Joseph County Public Library, "Tutt and Western offer new meeting and study spaces" (September 2022) — the Western Branch "built identically to a few other branches."