South Bend, Indiana · 20th century
1970s
69 dated events in 1970s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
20th century 69 dated mentions
1970s
- 1970The modern composition: the censuses of 2000, 2010 and 2020, and the Hispanic series
The Bureau's historical compilation gives the first counts from the 1970 census's samples: 1,267 residents of Hispanic origin on the 15-percent sample (the 5-percent sample read 1,744 — the two samples are printed here as the Bureau printed them, a sample spread, not a conflict of counts).
- 1970Craig Counsell: Born Here, Formed at Notre Dame, Twice a Game 7 Hero
Craig John Counsell was born August 21, 1970, in South Bend, the only child of John Counsell — captain of Notre Dame's 1964 baseball team and a former minor-league outfielder — and Jan Counsell.
- 1970The designation record: the Register, the landmarks, the districts
St. Joseph County's National Register record opens in 1970, when the Van Osdel courthouse of 1853–55 — the courthouse the city had picked up, turned around and moved rather than demolish in the winter of 1895–96…
- 1970Jimmy Brogan: formed on South Quad
At Notre Dame — class of 1970, then graduate study he jokes the university ended after six years — a member of the original An Tostal festival committee, he proposed an impersonation contest and was made its emcee.
- 1970The downtown unmade: renewal, the Hole, and the mall that stayed on paper
The Downtown South Bend 2045 Plan, the city's own adopted history of its center, dates the renewal era from 1970, when the Redevelopment Commission called for removal of blighted buildings across downtown.
- 1970–todayThe modern police chiefs
Marciniak's career, as the resolution recites it, is the department's own ideal of the service: appointed a patrol officer on 16 July 1970, he served in every rank of the department on the way to its command.
- 1971AM General — a headquarters with a Studebaker root
How a Jeep division became a South Bend company: AM General was formed in 1971, when the American Motors Corporation made the Jeep Corporation's General Products Division a wholly owned subsidiary and renamed it AM General Corporation.
- 1971Tested and placed outside the city — Stauffer Chemical
A name in the lines, a plant in Bremen: The 1971 Polk volume carries South Bend residents in its alphabetical lines as Stauffer laboratory workers, and no Stauffer entry stands in either banked business fragment.
- 1971The mail Jeeps: AM General's Dispatchers, and a South Bend assembly line
The line began under Willys and Kaiser Jeep in the 1950s and 1960s; it passed to the American Motors years and then, from 1971, to AM General, which built it to the end in 1984.
- 1971The Southeast neighborhood
The southeast side organized itself into the city's plans: the neighborhood — the ground south of Sample Street and east of Fellows, built over the Denniston and Fellows plat's eastern reach and the industrial flats beyond…
- 1971The Zoological Society, 1971
Lead: In 1971 the zoo acquired the institution that would eventually take it over. The Parks Department's chronological history records the founding in one line: "1971 — Friends of the Zoo organized, later became the Potawatomi Zoological Society."
- 1971–1973Sure-Brake — the computerized brake of 1971
The first of its kind, as the record describes it: Chrysler, together with the Bendix Corporation, introduced for the 1971 Imperial a computerized, three-channel, four-sensor, all-wheel anti-lock braking system called Sure-Brake, and the 1971 Imperial is widely described in the automotive record as the first…
- 1971–todayAmtrak at South Bend
South Bend's intercity service since 1971 is a story of one route kept, one route gained late, and one train renamed under it: Amtrak's creation consolidated what remained of the city's intercity trains at the South Shore's 1970 west-side station — Union Station's last trains left on 1 May 1971, the day Amtrak began.
- 1972Amy Coney Barrett — the justice formed here
The tie, exactly: Barrett was not born or raised here, and this entry does not pretend otherwise: she was born on January 28, 1972, in New Orleans and raised in Metairie, Louisiana.
- 1972North Village Mall: the small mall on U.S. 31
A $2.1 million mall: The city's own timeline dates the north side's mall plainly: "1972: North Village Mall construction underway.
- 1972The ground after brewing: the Omniplex, the Register, the demolitions — and the brand that would not come home
Of the plant that brewed from 1865 to 1972, the standing record in November 2026 is that: a listed district's ground, a smokestack, a park across the way that keeps the founder's name, and a development plan.
- 1972–1988Miller, Nemeth, Parent: the downtown builders
Jerry Miller (1972–1976): Miller won the election of 2 November 1971 — Janet Allen, the Republican nominee, would have been the city's first woman mayor — and took office as the renewal era wound down and the city's population slide steepened.
- 1973The St. Joseph County Airport Authority
Its own financial reports give its birth twice: the FY2005 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report states in one passage that the Authority was "established January 1, 1974, by the St. Joseph County Council" under Indiana Code 1971 19-6-2, Public Law 304 — the statute since superseded by IC 8-22-3…
- 1973La Casa de Amistad
Founding: La Casa de Amistad — the House of Friendship — was formed on 17 October 1973, in its own published history's exact date, by Father John Phalen, C.S.C., and Latino community leaders of South Bend, as a youth outreach program answering the needs of Latino teenagers, many of them from the migrant-worker…
- 1973The boundary at Richmond: the Indiana Football Hall of Fame
It was founded in January 1973 as an affiliation of the Indiana Football Coaches Association, which directs its policies and selections to this day; the organization bought its Richmond building in July 1974, for $98,000, and kept the Hall there — plaques, portraits and a library of the Indiana game…
- 1973The West Washington fight and the district of 1975
Tippecanoe Place was listed on the National Register on 2 July 1973 — its nomination already names Southhold Restorations, Inc., the local preservation group, as the house's owner, holding it while the district fight was won around it — and Copshaholm followed on 28 August 1973.
- 1973The law of keeping: the ordinance of 1973 and the Commission
The ordinance: The City of South Bend's own account is one sentence: the Historic Preservation Commission of South Bend and St. Joseph County "was established by Ordinance in 1973."
- 1973October 1973: the great wave, and where Indiana's center lay
The state record: Blue Book had been closed four years when the largest sighting wave of the 1970s crossed the country in the fall of 1973, and Indiana's documented share of it is dated precisely: on 9 October 1973, by the Mutual UFO Network of Indiana's account as the Stacker state survey carries it, first-responder…
- 1973Glass houses on the riverbend: the Potawatomi Conservatories
The display houses came a generation later, and they came, like the theatre downtown, from Ella Morris: the Ella Morris Conservatory and the Muessel-Ellison Conservatory were built in the 1960s, gifts of Ella Morris and the Muessel-Ellison Foundation respectively, and the Arizona Desert Dome joined them in 1973, three…
- 1973–2004The Mall Screens and the Multiplex
The pictures moved to the malls in the 1970s, and the first mall screen in the record is Scottsdale Mall's: a single screen opened by ABC Great-States on August 17, 1973, with Jesus Christ Superstar , passing to Plitt Theatres in 1974, twinned on June 8, 1984, taken over by Cineplex Odeon in 1985 and by Kerasotes in 1990.
- 1973–2023The lunch that built a competition: Fischoff, 1973
The founding: In 1973 Joseph E. Fischoff and his fellow members of the South Bend Chamber Music Society sat down to lunch at the former Summit Club and founded a chamber music competition.
- 1973–todayThe Fischoff: a competition founded here
The founding: In 1973 Joseph E. Fischoff and his fellow members of the South Bend Chamber Music Society founded a chamber music competition in South Bend.
- 1973–todayDance: Southold Dance Theater whole
The founding: South Bend's dance institution was founded in 1973 — the same year as the Fischoff — by three founders, Ann Dunn, Bonnie Boilini and Jill Engel Tulchinsky, in the company's history as its ticketing partner summarizes it, with first classes and performances in a historic church converted to a studio.
- 1974South Bend Heritage Foundation
Founding and course: South Bend Heritage Foundation was established in July 1974, in its own account, "to help reverse the physical and social decline taking place in South Bend neighborhoods"…
- 1974South Bend Heritage: the development corporation that outlasted the century
The founding: South Bend Heritage Foundation was incorporated on 11 July 1974, under the name Southold Heritage Foundation, Inc. — the name its articles of incorporation of 9 July 1974 carry, and the name under which the Internal Revenue Service issued its 501(c)(3) determination letter.
- 1974The Ethnic Festival: Michigan Street's summer crowd
The History Museum's own account fixes its line: established in 1974, it ran each summer for over twenty years on Michigan Street, and in the mid-1990s it was transformed and renamed Summer in the City and moved to Howard Park.
- 1974South Bend Heritage: preservation with its hands on
The corporation: The Nonprofits account in this record carries the charter: South Bend Heritage Foundation was incorporated on 11 July 1974, under the name Southold Heritage Foundation, as a community development corporation, and its first target area was the West Washington ground around the Oliver Mansion.
- 1974The database era: the National UFO Reporting Center
The system now: Since 1974 the national record of sightings has been kept not by the Air Force but by the National UFO Reporting Center, founded that year by Robert J. Gribble…
- 1974–1977The riverfront bet: Century Center, 1977
Century Center rose on the banks of the West Race of the St. Joseph River downtown, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, two of the most famous architects in America, construction beginning in 1974 and the doors opening on 1 November 1977, at a cost of $13 million.
- 1974–2019Mike Bennett: forty years at the stadium rail
The freelancer who became the institution: Mike Bennett (c. 1950 – 5 August 2019) was raised in South Bend and came to Notre Dame photography through the stadium gate: he began as a stadium usher in 1966, took a tool-and-die apprenticeship, and built a photography career from 1974, managing a commercial studio before…
- 1974–2022The mechanization curve, II: the long thinning, 1974 – 2022
The plateau and the wobbles, printed as published: From 1974 the censuses count wheel tractors (the garden and crawler machines folded into the general stock), and several of the mid-series volumes rest on samples of farms…
- 1974–todayThe funding course: how the money reaches the art
The foundation's own founding stands in this record as a three-way conflict printed unsettled in Charities — its current text says 1992, an aggregator says 1991, and the Internal Revenue Service's exemption date on its own employer number reads May 1974…
- 1975The only murder on the campus · Helen Tobolski
On Saturday, March 22, 1975 — the first day of spring break, on a mostly empty campus — she checked in at 7 a.m. and began her cleaning routine in the aerospace engineering building, a one-story structure that stood just north of what is now the Joyce Center.
- 1975Lee Nailon: From Clay's State Title to an MVP in Israel
Lee Nailon was born February 22, 1975, in South Bend, and at Clay High School, alongside the sophomore Jaraan Cornell, he led the Colonials to the 1994 Indiana state championship.
- 1975The West Washington Historic District — the Street the Industrial City Built
Listed on the National Register on 17 January 1975, the West Washington Historic District runs in an irregular pattern roughly bounded by Main Street, Western Avenue, West LaSalle Avenue and McPherson Street, and takes in more than three hundred buildings developed between about 1854 and 1910…
- 1975The surveys: the city reads its own buildings
The downtown was surveyed first: the Historic Resources of Downtown South Bend survey ran from 1975 to 1981, and its inventory became the January 1984 Multiple Resource Area nominations that carried dozens of downtown properties onto the National Register in a single batch on 5 June 1985.
- 1975Sydney Pollack: the Mirage years
The credit record carries him as a producer from 1975 — on his own films first, Three Days of the Condor among them, and Tootsie (1982) and Out of Africa (1985) after — and in 1985, just before Out of Africa 's release, he founded his own company, Mirage Enterprises, naming it, as a pilot, after an airplane.
- 1975–todayBowling — the test, and what the record actually holds
The association: The Michiana Bowlers Association, the region's tournament bowlers' organization, was founded at Chippewa Bowl in 1975 and celebrated its fiftieth anniversary there on September 21, 2025, telling its own founding story in the room where it began.
- 1976The electric era: a factory electric Jeep in 1976, and the documented negative after it
1976 — the Electruck: The most forward-looking vehicle in this section was a mail Jeep.
- 1976The credit union robbery of 1976 · the case the court reports carry
The robbery: late in the afternoon of October 15, 1976, two men walked into a federal credit union in South Bend — the court reports that preserve the case do not name the institution — and robbed it of about $2,400.
- 1976The first line: the 1976 ordinance and Dandy Co.
The ordinance: On December 14, 1976, South Bend enacted Ordinance No. 6090-76, effective January 1, 1977 — one of the early American attempts to disperse adult businesses by zoning.
- 1976–1979The Associates' departure — an interval, printed unreconciled
A sourced history of the Las Colinas development in Texas records that "in January 1976, The Associates North America closed on a site in Wingren Office Park, and before the year was out, opened its new headquarters…
- 1977Ryan Newman — the Daytona 500 winner, cross-referenced
He was born on December 8, 1977, graduated with honors from LaSalle High School, and — the distinctive fact of his career — took a bachelor's degree in vehicle structure engineering from Purdue in 2001 while his racing career was already running, which made him the rare stock-car driver who could argue suspension…
- 1977David Stremme — two hundred Cup starts from the short tracks
David Andrew Stremme was born in South Bend on June 19, 1977, into a line of Midwestern short-track racers — a great-uncle who raced in the 1950s, his father, his mother, his brother — and his first stock-car victory came at fifteen, in the early 1990s, at New Paris Speedway in his mother's street-stock car…
- 1977Ryan Newman: the speedway builder's grandson
Born here, tied to the quarter-mile by blood: Ryan Newman was born in South Bend on 8 December 1977.
- 1977David Stremme: the other 1977
A racing family's son: David Stremme was born in South Bend on 19 June 1977 — the same year as Ryan Newman, in the same city — and came out of a racing family entire: his great-uncle raced in the 1950s, and his father, his mother, and his brother were all racers and champions at Midwest tracks…
- 1977–2009The township branches: Francis, North Liberty, Lakeville, Centre, German
In 1977 the library opened its newest branch as the Clay Branch; it was later renamed the Francis Branch, for the former director Roger B. Francis, and stands today at 52655 North Ironwood Road.
- 1977–todayLandmark acts IV: rebuilding downtown, project by project
The convention bet, 1977: The first monument of the post-Studebaker government was a wager that downtown could be a destination rather than a memory.
- 1977–todayThe public era: NICTD and the freight split
The line's rescue was an act of the Indiana legislature, and its final form is two railroads on one track: In 1977 the Indiana General Assembly established the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District — NICTD — to subsidize, and then to own, the passenger service.
- 1977–todayThe Modern Era — the Century Center and the Present State of the Record
The Century Center, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee — the Johnson/Burgee partnership at the height of its powers — broke ground in 1974 and opened in 1977, at a cost carried at $13 million in the university's survey record.
- 1977–todayGurley Leep: the Buick store bought in 1977
The founding: In 1977 Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley purchased the Buick store in downtown South Bend.
- 1978Center for Hospice Care and the Hospice Foundation
Its published release of June 2018 says the Center for Hospice Care was "established in 1978." Its current site says it has been "serving patients in St. Joseph County since 1980," and its 2020 annual report calls 2020 "our 40th anniversary year" — arithmetic for 1980.
- 1978The Blizzard of 1978 · the winter that still measures all the others
January 1978 alone brought 86.1 inches .
- 1978The Natatorium: preservation as repair
The pool closed in 1978 and the building stood vacant for more than a quarter-century.
- 1978St. Patrick's County Park
The park opened in 1978, and the county's map preserves the gesture that marked it: at the park's north end, evergreens planted that year spell out "St. Patrick's," a living sign that "pays tribute to the historic pine trees at Bendix Woods County Park that spell 'Studebaker.'" The named trails on the county's map run…
- 1978Spicer Lake Nature Preserve
In 1978, the county's master plan records, the park board — assisted by the South Bend Audubon Society, the Indiana Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources…
- 1978Macri's: the Calabrian bakery of 1978
The founding: George Sr. and Iole Macri came from Calabria and opened Macri's Italian Bakery in 1978 on LaSalle Avenue, beside the family's jewelry business.
- 1979Tire Rack — the tester that stayed
From one Indianapolis store: Tire Rack was founded in 1979 in Indianapolis by Peter Veldman and his wife Wilma, German immigrants who had come to South Bend, with their son-in-law Mike Joines joining them in the business — beginning as a single retail tire store.
- 1979The carrier hotel: Kevin Smith, Soft Chip, and Global Access Point
The purchase itself carries a printed conflict this section does not average: the station's standard history dates Smith's purchase to 1979, while ChoiceLight's account of the building says he bought it in 1981, following it through bankruptcy and winning it with a bid of 28,000 dollars.
- 1979The tire line: distribution as an export trade
Tire Rack was founded in Indianapolis in 1979 by Peter and Wilma Veldman and their son-in-law Mike Joines, as a retail tire store with a mail-order idea — stock a few of every tire, and ship the odd sizes the local trade could not supply.
- 1979Peter Veldman and Mike Joines — the Tire Rack
The founding: Tire Rack was founded in 1979 in Indianapolis by Peter Veldman and his wife Wilma, beginning as a single retail tire store; their son-in-law Mike Joines joined them in the business.
- 1979Across the line: University Park Mall
The Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation announced it in 1976, in joint venture with the local developers George and Donald Cressy; Sears opened ahead of the mall on March 1, 1979, and the mall itself on March 14, 1979, with JCPenney, Sears, L. S. Ayres, and Hudson's for anchors.
- 1979–2017Beverly Crone and the county's other firsts
Beverly Delores (Munger) Crone, after twenty years in bookkeeping and accounting, first sought office in 1979 as a member of the South Bend Common Council; elected at large, she was re-elected in 1983, and left the council to fill a vacancy in the St. Joseph County Auditor's office…
- 1979–todayUnion Station — the carrier hotel
Its second life began when Kevin M. Smith bought it — in 1979 on the station's standard account, in 1981 on the account of ChoiceLight, the fiber company that later worked from it, which quotes Smith himself; the two years stand as their sources give them.