The first train: October 1851

1850–1852 · THE FIRST RAILS

The railroad came to the bend from the east, along the river towns: The Northern Indiana & Chicago Railroad was chartered on 30 November 1850 to build west from the Michigan Southern's line at the Indiana state line toward Chicago. Its rails came through Elkhart, Osceola and Mishawaka — Mishawaka is a separate city down the river, with its own future build; the line passed through it on its way here — and the road opened to South Bend on 4 October 1851. The town's own history, The Story of South Bend (1920), tells the arrival as the set-piece it was: the first train came in on a Saturday to bonfires and the town cannon, and the first station stood on West Washington Street. The through line west to Chicago opened on 20 February 1852, and with it South Bend stood on a completed railroad between Chicago and the East — a position it has never entirely lost. The corporate succession ran fast, as it did everywhere in that decade: on 25 April 1855 the road was folded into the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana Railroad, the company whose name the bend's first generation of railroad men worked under.

Sources:

1. This build's Spine section — the first locomotive's arrival of 4 October 1851, settled there and built on here.
2. The Story of South Bend (1920), read at archive.org — the first train's Saturday arrival, the bonfires and the town cannon, and the first station on West Washington Street; the digitized text is partially garbled and is not quoted beyond what it plainly says.
3. The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern's corporate record — the Northern Indiana & Chicago charter of 30 November 1850, the opening to South Bend on 4 October 1851, the Chicago completion of 20 February 1852, and the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana consolidation of 25 April 1855.