The Elks of the World: LaSalle Landing Lodge No. 298, I.B.P.O.E.W.

1001 West Western Avenue — documented to 2026; founding not reached

The second Elks house: South Bend's Black Elks lodge stands at 1001 West Western Avenue, in the city's west-side Black neighborhood, under the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World — the order Black men founded in 1898 after the older order's doors were closed to them, and whose lodges the Indiana state preservation survey names among the state's Black fraternal institutions. The lodge styles itself LaSalle Landing Lodge No. 298 on its own sign. Its founding date was not reached and is not guessed; the lodge's documented modern course is full enough to print on its own.

A political hall: The lodge house works as one of the west side's civic rooms. It stands on the city's Dyngus Day map — the 2016 schedule lists a Lodge No. 298 session, and on Dyngus Day 2026 (April 6) the lodge served its meal from noon, candidates introduced at 1 p.m., a $15 ticket, in the St. Joseph County Democratic Party's own schedule and the Tribune's and WNDU's listings. On August 30, 2026, the lodge hosted a public rally for a statewide candidate that drew more than seventy people, the Tribune's account treating the hall as the natural room for it. The city's April 2026 street-renaming at Western Avenue and Laurel Street set the honorary name Solidarity Day Drive at the lodge's corner. A member's obituary in 2025 calls him a "lifelong member and former leader of Elks Lodge #298" — the lodge named in the record of a life the way the older lodges are named in Howard.

Sources:

1. Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, lodge listing (ibpoew.org) — Elks Lodge 298, 1001 W. Western Ave., South Bend, standing active.
2. St. Joseph County Democratic Party, Dyngus Day schedule, April 6, 2026, and South Bend Tribune / WNDU Dyngus Day listings, April 3, 2026 — Lodge No. 298 among the day's venues, candidates introduced at 1 p.m.
3. South Bend Tribune, September 25, 2026 — the August 30, 2026, rally at Elks Lodge #298, 1001 W. Western Ave.
4. City of South Bend, municipal post, April 6, 2026 — the lodge's sign ("LaSalle Landing Lodge #298 'THE ELKS'") and the Solidarity Day Drive renaming at Western and Laurel.
5. Obituary of James Lee Austin Jr., Chapel Hill Funeral Home (April 2025) — "a lifelong member and former leader of Elks Lodge #298."
6. Dyngus/Solidarity Day schedule of events, March 28, 2016 — Elks Lodge #298, 1001 W. Western, on the day's map.