The Story of South Bend: What It Leaves Out

FOR ASSEMBLY

The test: The Story of South Bend section is this history's timeline, written before most of its legs existed. This pass tested it against the record the later legs banked — every banked file's subjects checked against the Story of South Bend section's twenty-four entries, by name and by search — to find the documented items that belong on the timeline at pointer size and are not there. Fifteen stand. Each is printed here at the size assembly needs: the item, its dates, and the file of this history that owns its full telling. None is written out here; the Story of South Bend section gains a line, not a chapter, from each.

The fifteen:

• The influenza autumn of 1918 (October–December 1918; 306 city deaths in the state board's tables). The Story of South Bend section's war entry carries the war; the epidemic that killed more of the county than the war did has no line of its own. Owned by the epidemics record, settled.
• The Potawatomi Zoo (founded 1921, on Erskine's gift of a single deer; the city's second zoo founding, after the Leeper Park duck pond of 1902). The Story of South Bend section never mentions a zoo. Owned by the zoo record.
• The College Football Hall of Fame's South Bend years (1995–2012, with its last Enshrinement Festival in 2012) — a national institution seated in the city for seventeen years, in the Story of South Bend section not at all. Owned by the halls-of-fame record.
• Wheel Horse (1946–1986) — a manufacturer of the first rank in its line, built in South Bend for forty years and sold to Toro for $8 million; the whole first build missed it, and the Story of South Bend section's factory entries do not carry it. Owned by the tractors record.
• Studebaker's receivership and Albert Russell Erskine (March 1933). The Story of South Bend section's Depression entry carries the crash, the bank holiday and the 1936 sit-down, but neither the receivership that remade the company nor the name of the president under whom it fell. Owned by the Studebaker and founders-and-CEOs records.
• Urban renewal's displacements (the 1950s–1970s clearances; the city's own Reparatory Justice Commission counts 606 families displaced, about three-quarters of them families of color). The Story of South Bend section's remaking entries carry renewal as policy; the count of the displaced is absent. Owned by the government record.
• The Palace Theatre, now the Morris Performing Arts Center (opened 1922; saved by Ella Morris's one-dollar purchase for the city in 1959; stage of two premieres fifty-three years apart) — no theatre stands in the Story of South Bend section. Owned by the theatres and famous-locations records.
• Coveleski Stadium (opened 1987 or 1988 — the year is itself an open item between the people and sports records, which assembly settles from the sports record's evidence) — professional baseball's return to the city has no spine line. Owned by the sports record.
• The February 2018 flood — the St. Joseph River's record crest, 12.70 feet, breaking a gauge record that had twice stopped at 10.90. The Story of South Bend section carries no flood. Owned by the rivers record.
• The police-tapes case (2011–2026) — fifteen years of litigation over the recording of police telephone lines, ending in a federal ruling in May 2026 that the recordings violated both wiretap acts; the city's largest legal controversy of its century so far, absent from the Story of South Bend section. Owned by the controversies record.
• The Housing Authority fraud case (federal case 3:21-cr-64; six convicted) — the city's largest modern corruption case, absent from the Story of South Bend section. Owned by the controversies record.
• 1,000 Houses in 1,000 Days (2013–2015; 1,122 properties addressed by the thousandth day) — the signature housing program of the Buttigieg years, whom the Story of South Bend section names without it. Owned by the controversies record.
• The Metronet and the Union Station carrier hotel (2003–2004) — the fiber builds that made the city a node in the national network; the Story of South Bend section's remaking entry mentions a data center once, unnamed. Owned by the dot-com record.
• The South Shore Line's Double Track completion (2024) — the largest change to the railroad the Story of South Bend section follows from 1908; the Story of South Bend section's line on the railroad ends with the service "as it has since 1908." Owned by the trains and transit records.
• The 2025 City Hall opening (13 October 2025, at 215 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) — the seat of government moved for the first time in the building age; the Story of South Bend section's closing entry carries the 2020 count and the 2025 estimate but not the opening. Owned by the government and today records.

What the test found carried: The Story of South Bend section is thin, not careless. Its closing entries already carry the casino and the Four Winds tower years, Ignition Park and the ball club, Century Center, the Klan fight of the 1920s, and the Notre Dame of the Freeman years; its factory entries carry Singer, Bendix and the sit-down at their spine size. The fifteen above are the whole of what two passes of checking found missing against a record of more than a hundred files — which is the measure of the list, and of the Story of South Bend section.

Sources:

1. The records of this history as named in each item — epidemics, zoo, halls-of-fame, tractors, Studebaker, founders-and-CEOs, government, theatres, famous-locations, sports, rivers, controversies, dot-com, trains and transit records — each verified against the banked spine's full text.