The Knights of Columbus: Santa Maria Council 553

Chartered January 6, 1901 — hall at 553 East Washington Street today

The charter: The council's own newsletter masthead carries its birth date: "Knights of Columbus, Santa Maria Council #553, Chartered January 6, 1901." Howard finds it six years on, meeting the first and third Wednesday evenings, Grand Knight John B. Weber. The council is a Catholic men's order's local body — its membership is the order's own stated character, Catholic men — and its social side ran through its hall, kept by the council's Columbus Club, whose meetings stand in the council's own event listings into the 2020s.

The Indiana Club and the bowlers: In its early days the council made its home in the Indiana Club, the downtown club Howard lists among the city's social clubs in 1907, which had four bowling lanes in its basement. There, in 1946, council members Bob Mackin and Erv Golabowski formed the council's bowling league. Mackin bowled in it for 65 continuous years, retiring at the end of the 2011 season — the diocesan newspaper, Today's Catholic (May 25, 2011), telling the league's story from the Indiana Club's lanes forward. The council's own building followed: a Knights of Columbus building at 320 West Jefferson Boulevard went up in 1922, designed by Nicol, Scholer & Hoffman, per the state preservation survey's account of the city's fraternal buildings.

The council today: The council's own newsletter, The Anchor, gives its strength at a date: 259 active members as of December 31, 2014. The council still publishes The Anchor (Volume 53 in 2025) and works from its hall at 553 East Washington Street — "Hall 553" — holding its rosaries, its degree ceremonies, and a monthly Sunday buffet open to guests, as a parish bulletin prints it in December 2025; the diocese's own list of Catholic organizations carries the council at that address. The date of the move from West Jefferson to East Washington was not reached.

Sources:

1. The Anchor, newsletter of Santa Maria Council 553 (February 2015; March and April 2025) — the charter date, January 6, 1901, in the masthead; 259 active members as of December 31, 2014.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. I (1907), p. 463 — the council's meetings and Grand Knight John B. Weber.
3. Today's Catholic, May 25, 2011 — the council's early home in the Indiana Club, its four basement lanes, the 1946 bowling league of Mackin and Golabowski, and Mackin's 65 years.
4. Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology, fraternal-organizations survey article (2023) — the Knights of Columbus building, 320 W. Jefferson Blvd., 1922, Nicol, Scholer & Hoffman.
5. Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, Catholic organizations list (current) — Santa Maria Council 553, 553 E. Washington St.; the council's event listings and a parish bulletin, December 2025 — the hall at work.