The armory line, II · the settlement of 1963 and the Kemble Avenue ground

1963 — the present center

South Bend's modern military ground was created by a bridge: Ordinance No. 4561, passed by the Common Council on 11–12 March 1963, records that the construction and reconstruction of the Sample Street Bridge took the sites of both the State Armory and the United States Naval and Marine Corps Training Center — two facts in one recital: South Bend then had a federal naval and Marine training center of its own, and in 1963 both it and the Guard's armory were displaced together. The ordinance is the city's answer: it donated 26.629 acres on the southwest side — bounded by Bruce Street, Kemble Avenue, Donald Street and Webster Street — to the State of Indiana for a new armory, and it records a separate pending agreement for a joint State Armory and Naval-Marine facility on the same ground, negotiated with the District Public Works Office of the Ninth Naval District at Great Lakes. The Kemble Avenue ground is that ground. On it stands the Armed Forces Reserve Center at 1901 South Kemble Avenue — a federal DEERS and ID-card site as well as a drill hall — which the Military Department of Indiana lists today as "Your armory in South Bend," with the Army National Guard's recruiting station at the same address, a Soldier & Family Readiness presence, the department's South Bend fitness performance center, and a Survivor Outreach Services office for the city. The federal reserve center and the state armory the 1963 ordinance imagined side by side are, in the present building, one shared house: Indiana Guardsmen, Army Reservists and Marine Corps Reservists drill on the city's donated acres, as the entries below give them.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Ordinance No. 4561 (passed 11–12 March 1963; docs.southbendin.gov) — the Sample Street Bridge taking the sites of the State Armory and the United States Naval and Marine Corps Training Center; the donation of 26.629 acres bounded by Bruce Street, Kemble Avenue, Donald Street and Webster Street (Township 37 North, Range 2 East, Section 14) to the State of Indiana for a new armory; the pending joint State Armory / Naval-Marine facility agreement with the District Public Works Office, Ninth Naval District, Great Lakes.
2. Military Department of Indiana, "Indiana National Guard in Your Community" (in.gov) — "Your armory in South Bend: 1901 S. Kemble Avenue, South Bend, IN 46613," the Army National Guard recruiting station at the same address, the South Bend Fitness Performance Center at 1901 Kemble Ave., and the South Bend Survivor Outreach Services contact.
3. MyArmyBenefits resource locator — the Armed Forces Reserve Center, South Bend, at 1901 S. Kemble Avenue (DEERS site ID 102846).