The Elks: South Bend Lodge No. 235, B.P.O.E.

Chartered 12 June 1892 — the Colfax temple by 1907 — 3535 McKinley Avenue today

The temple on Colfax: Howard's 1907 census gives the lodge its fullest early picture: "The Order of Elks is represented by South Bend Lodge No. 235, B. P. O. E. They have built a fine Elks' Temple on West Colfax avenue, opposite the Commercial-Athletic building. The temple is one of the architectural ornaments of the city. The lodge meets every Monday evening." James B. McCance was exalted ruler. The 1921 city directory fixes the temple's address at 217–219 West Colfax Avenue, with the lodge meeting the first and third Mondays. In July 1910 the temple hosted the order's ninth annual Indiana state reunion (July 7–9), the city's own booster magazine printing the program, the parade route past the temple, and a band concert on its balcony.

The Mother's Day resolution: The lodge holds one documented place in a national story. A history of the order printed in South Bend in 1910 recounts that on Monday evening, February 29, 1904, Frank E. Hering presented in the lodge a resolution proposing a national Mother's Day, which was unanimously adopted; the Pennsylvania Elks' state history repeats the account, placing Hering's 1904 proposal in "the South Bend, Indiana, Lodge No. 235" and noting that it predated Anna Jarvis's suggestion by fourteen months. Hering was a South Bend man — an English instructor at Notre Dame — and he was also a member of the city's Eagles aerie, whose own tradition claims the same campaign began there; the two claims are printed in the Eagles entry below, unresolved between the orders.

The institution date, settled: The year Lodge No. 235 was instituted is settled by the city’s own record: Common Council Resolution 17-27, approved 12 June 2017 — adopted on the lodge’s 125th anniversary, the arithmetic exact — recites that the lodge was chartered on 12 June 1892. The other carriers agree once read at their own kinds: a memorial plaque photographed in the present lodge house reads "Instituted May 11, 189–," its final digit not legible in the photograph — an institution under dispensation in May and a charter in June are the order’s normal sequence, and the decade is the 1890s on both records; the lodge’s own website, in a posting of the mid-2020s, speaks of the lodge "after 125 years"; and the Grand Lodge’s published institution list, when reached, carries no date for this lodge at all. One carrier does not survive: the national order’s roll of famous Elks lists Schuyler Colfax — South Bend’s own — as a member of Lodge No. 235, but Colfax died on 13 January 1885, seven years before the charter; the listing is impossible and is struck. The same plaque carries the lodge’s deceased members, Knute Rockne (died March 31, 1931) among them.

East to McKinley Avenue: The lodge's move from Colfax Avenue is documented by 1964: on March 27, 1964, the Dockery conveyance put its McKinley Avenue ground in the lodge's hands — the transaction that, decades later, reached the Indiana Court of Appeals as Murat v. South Bend Lodge No. 235 (2009). The lodge stands today at 3535 McKinley Avenue, a working lodge house with banquet rooms and an eight-lane bowling alley, its own site active in 2026.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. I (1907), p. 462 — the Elks' Temple on West Colfax Avenue, the Monday meetings, Exalted Ruler James B. McCance and the lodge's officers.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend city directory, 1921 — Lodge No. 235 at the Elks' Temple, 217–219 W. Colfax Ave.
3. Electricity magazine, South Bend, Vol. IV, No. VII (July 9, 1910), via Michiana Memory (SJCPL) — the ninth annual state reunion of the Elks, July 7–9, 1910, at the temple; the February 29, 1904, Hering resolution as the lodge's own printed history.
4. Pennsylvania State Elks Association, lodge history — the 1904 Hering proposal in South Bend Lodge No. 235 (the name spelled "Herring" there).
5. Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, "Famous Elks" roll (elks.org) — Schuyler Colfax listed under South Bend, IN Lodge No. 235.
6. Murat v. South Bend Lodge No. 235, B.P.O.E., Indiana Court of Appeals (2009) — the March 27, 1964, Dockery conveyance to the lodge.
7. South Bend Elks Lodge No. 235, the lodge's own site and listings (southbendelks.org; 3535 McKinley Ave.) — the present house, its banquet rooms and eight-lane bowling alley; the photographed memorial plaque ("Instituted May 11, 189–"; Knute Rockne on the deceased-members roll).