South Bend, Indiana · 20th century
1990s
60 dated events in 1990s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
20th century 60 dated mentions
1990s
- 1990Dylan Krieger: the poet
Dylan Krieger (born 1990): settled up from the same unresolved list, at compact size.
- 1990Skylar Diggins — Washington High School to the WNBA
Skylar Kierra Diggins was born in South Bend on August 2, 1990, grew up in the city — her father directed a local recreation center, and she was in South Bend gyms, in her own telling, from the start — and played at Washington High School and then stayed home for Notre Dame.
- 1990St. Margaret's House
Founding: St. Margaret's House began in a deacon's observation: the Reverend Sarah Tracy, of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. James, saw women downtown with nowhere to go during the day, and in 1990 she and others at the cathedral envisioned a day shelter for women and children.
- 1990Skylar Diggins: Cross-Reference
She was born August 2, 1990, in South Bend; at Washington High School her teams went 102–7 and she scored 2,790 points, won the 2007 state championship, and was named Miss Indiana Basketball and the Naismith and Gatorade national player of the year.
- 1990–1992A county name and a wrapped building
The change: In 1990 the South Bend Public Library was officially renamed the St. Joseph County Public Library — the name catching up with a service that had long since run past the city line — and in 1992 a new Main Library was dedicated, in the library's own words, "in its original location on 304 S. Main Street."
- 1990–2006The Osco murders · Christopher Allen's four courtrooms, 1990–2006
On the morning of 25 August 1990, three employees were found shot to death inside the Osco Drug store on Western Avenue: Scott Dick, twenty-nine, the assistant manager, who had been the first to arrive to open the store; Tracy Holvoet, the pharmacist; and Connie Zalewski, forty-three, a store clerk.
- 1990–2025The Crime Stoppers appeals · the city's working list
Geraldine Reasor, 64 — South Bend, May 3, 1990. On that day the 400 block of South Scott Street filled with police lights.
- 1990–2026The Osco murders — Christopher Allen's post-dismissal record, and the case's standing in November 2026
The Murders file carries the case whole to the dismissal of the charges — the three killings at the Osco drugstore on August 25, 1990, the indictment of 1999, the hung jury, the 2002 conviction and 144-year sentence, the 2004 reversal, and the third jury's failure to agree in 2006.
- 1991Alexander Toradze and the Toradze Piano Studio
In 1991 he was appointed the Martin Endowed Professor of Piano at Indiana University South Bend — the first endowed piano professor at any Indiana University campus, in IUSB's own account, the chair established through a gift from Lee and Geraldine Martin.
- 1991The South Bend Chocolate Company: the licensed chocolate house
The founding, under a university's license: The South Bend Chocolate Company was founded on October 24, 1991, by Mark Tarner, a second-generation chocolate maker who grew up working in his father Don Tarner's Sugar 'N Spice shop.
- 1991LaSalle Grill: the Four Diamond house, 1991–2026
The house: Mark McDonnell — the Tippecanoe manager of the previous entry — closed on the building at 115 West Colfax Avenue on December 31, 1990, and opened LaSalle Grill on April 8, 1991, as the Tribune recorded in its closing account of March 4, 2026, and the Chamber's twenty-five-year profile had recorded at the quarter-century.
- 1991Coffee: the importer, the roasters, and the rebrands
One name is left out of the fragment deliberately: a Java Cafe founding in November 1991 by Todd Rippo rests on house history alone, with the present cafe's own copy ambiguous about its dates and geography; it is carried in this section's note as unresolved, not printed here as fact.
- 1991–todayThe clerk's desk: keeper of the record
The clerk's succession before the 1990s is not verified in the sources reached for this section, and the gap is printed rather than filled: the line below begins where the documents begin, with the clerk whose signature closes the council's 1991 valedictory to John Voorde.
- 1992The Community Foundation of St. Joseph County: the pooled vehicle
Carried whole in the Charities record: the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County stands in this history’s Charities record at full size — its founding printed there at its documented conflict (1992 in the foundation’s own account, 1991 in another of its tellings, an Internal Revenue Service determination of May…
- 1992AM General as an automobile maker: the Hummer line, built across the line
The Hummer and the H1: The civilian Hummer — the military HMMWV's road-going twin, whose production the Businesses section dates from 1984 at Mishawaka — opened for civilian sale on 14 March 1992.
- 1992The friendship layer: sister cities
The first was Częstochowa, Poland — the Common Council formally ratified the sister-city agreement on 21 July 1992, a tie to the country from which so many of the west side's founders had come, carried on educational, cultural and tourism exchanges.
- 1992The trains at the terminal: the South Shore's airport station
The railroad reached the airport in November 1992: The South Shore Line's airport station was dedicated on 20 November 1992 and the line's terminus moved to the airport on 21 November 1992 — the station record and the line record differ by the day, and both are printed.
- 1992Anthony Barr: Born Here, a Four-Time Pro Bowler
Anthony Barr was born March 18, 1992, in South Bend, and raised in Los Angeles, where he attended Loyola High School — the tie is birth, printed at that strength, and the formation was California's.
- 1992A League of Their Own — the league was this city's; the cameras were not
But the 1992 film that made the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League famous did not shoot a frame in South Bend, on the production record reached: its tryouts were filmed at Chicago's Wrigley Field…
- 1992Rudy (1993) — the second production, fifty-two years later
The fifty-day shoot, the notes say, began in South Bend in late October 1992, and six weeks of filming took place at Notre Dame, at Holy Cross Junior College, and at a local bar the notes name as Cap N' Cork; the Notre Dame locations the notes enumerate are the twin lakes, Notre Dame Stadium…
- 1992Bingo, raffles, and the license
The Department of Revenue was given enforcement of the charity gaming laws in June 1992; the system now sits with the Indiana Gaming Commission under Indiana Code Title 4, Article 32.3, most recently amended by Senate Bill 108 (Public Law 111, signed April 30, 2025), which among other changes authorized electronic…
- 1992–2026The endowment instead of a federation: ArtsEverywhere, 2004
The Community Foundation of St. Joseph County was established in 1992, and in December 2004 it launched the ArtsEverywhere Initiative, when the Leighton-Oare Foundation awarded a $3 million challenge grant to establish an endowed ArtsEverywhere Fund, in the foundation's words "a substantial, permanent, and growing…
- 1992–todayThe Community Foundation: the county's endowment, built without a founding fortune
The institution: The Community Foundation of St. Joseph County was established in 1992, with Rose Meissner as its president from its first year, and it grew into one of the top hundred community foundations in the United States…
- 1992–todayThe 933 Corridor, at Its True Boundary
The corridor's senior house is the Inn at Saint Mary's, at 53993 State Road 933: opened in 1992 in the directory record, 150 rooms, owned by Holladay Properties, with the Gillespie Conference and Special Event Center adjoining.
- 1993The first hour: dial-up, and the provider the record barely keeps
Indiana's documented first ISP story is Indianapolis's: Leo Doyle started IndyNet there in 1993, a founding the Indianapolis provider Midwest Internet states in its own 2003 release, noting that IndyNet had by then become part of EarthLink.
- 1993The Food Bank of Northern Indiana
Founding: The Food Bank's own published history begins with a telling word: in May 1993 the Hunger Education Task Force of the United Religious Community of St. Joseph County took up "re-establishing" food banking in the region…
- 1993–1994The museum's name: "Regional," bounded
City records of 15 November 1993 and 11 March 1994 use both names inside the same documents: the museum's director, Susan Visser, is styled of the "South Bend Museum of Art" while her institution is the "South Bend Regional Museum of Art."
- 1993–2026The Modern Homicide Record, as the Official Counts Give It
In 1993 the county built a single instrument for its worst cases: the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit, overseen by the prosecutor's office, which investigated homicides across the county for twenty-eight years.
- 1993–2026How Unsolved Cases Are Kept
The unit that was: For most of three decades, homicides in this city and county were worked by one joint body, the St. Joseph County Metro Homicide Unit, created in 1993 and staffed by the county's departments together.
- 1994Demetrius Jackson: The County's Scoring King
Demetrius Jackson Jr. was born September 7, 1994, in South Bend, and played at Marian High School in Mishawaka — the boundary printed as everywhere in this history — where he concluded his career as the all-time leading scorer in St. Joseph County history, 1,934 points, breaking a record that had stood for nearly twenty-five years.
- 1994The History Museum — the move of 1994 and the institution today
The move: In 1994 the society left the old courthouse and opened a modern museum building on the Copshaholm grounds at the corner of West Washington and Chapin streets — a campus of some ten acres holding the museum building, the Oliver Mansion, the Worker's Home and the Oliver Gardens.
- 1994The first public library on the web
In 1994, the library's history records, it was "the first library in the nation and the second worldwide to go live on the Worldwide Web"; the South Bend Common Council's 2015 resolution states the same first in the form this history carries: "the first public library in the United States to have a World Wide Web page."
- 1994Festive dress: the Greek costumes, and the Polish silence
The Hellenic Dance Troupe of St. Andrew Greek Orthodox Church, established in April 1994 under Father Christ Kontos, performs at the parish's Greek Festival in what its own history calls authentic costumes: its first were the Karagouna of Thessaly and an island dress of Symi, and by the 2017 festival the senior troupe…
- 1994–2014The new US 31: fifteen miles of new territory
The largest road project in the county's history took twenty years from project number to open road: The federal project record for the rebuilding of US 31 between Plymouth and South Bend carries designation number 9405230 — numbered, that is, in 1994.
- 1994–2014The Silver Hawks, 1994–2014
The name: The club considered a new name in 1994 and settled on Silver Hawks, as a tribute to the Studebaker Silver Hawk, the automobile built across the street from the stadium in the years of the great plant.
- 1995Tire Rack: the tester that sold online
Tire Rack began its website in 1995, in the first months of commercial web retail, and used it first for the thing that made the company: it posted its tire reviews and test results where anyone could read them.
- 1995Islamic Society of Michiana — the Al Noor Mosque
Notre Dame Magazine's account, written in 2006, states: "Built in 1995, the mosque on Hepler Street is the prayer home to Notre Dame Muslims and the 300 Muslim families who drive in from as far away as Sturgis, Michigan."
- 1995The Greer case · a home invasion and two judgments of the Supreme Court
In the early morning of 12 June 1995, three armed men — Michael Greer, Terrance Mitchem and Dorian Lee — broke into a South Bend house occupied by four adults, two men and two women.
- 1995The building: 111 South St. Joseph Street
The Hall opened on August 25, 1995. Kent Stephens, the Hall's historian and curator, was there from the arrival and remembered the first night seventeen years later: "The gridiron was filled with people.
- 1995The museum that left — the College Football Hall of Fame
Its museum life: For seventeen years downtown South Bend held a national museum: the College Football Hall of Fame, opened 25 August 1995 at 111 South St. Joseph Street, in a 52,000-square-foot building connected to Century Center, two miles from the campus whose team filled its halls.
- 1995The Nobel tie: one laureate, born here
The honor: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1995 went jointly to Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, and Eric F. Wieschaus, for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development — the work that found, in the fruit fly, the genes that lay out a body plan.
- 1995Club 23 and the Notre Dame Avenue rooms
Its documented record opens with fire: in June 1995 the club burned in the small hours — the bar had closed at 3 a.m. as usual; the alarm came at 3:53, the fire gutting the back pool room and damaging most of the interior, its cause undetermined in Fire Inspector Richard Fogle's finding as the Observer reported it…
- 1995–2012The South Bend years: the attendance that never came
The staff line across the era is short: Rick Walls directed the Hall before moving to head the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame; Lisa Malin, who had been with the Hall since it opened in South Bend in 1995, was named executive director in January 2008 after five months as interim director…
- 1995–2012The Enshrinement Festival: the city's football weekend
The 2005 festival was billed as the eleventh annual, which counts the series from 1995, the Hall's opening summer.
- 1995–2012The former College Football Hall of Fame building — fame's forwarding address
The fame frame: For seventeen years, from its opening in August 1995 to its last afternoon on the last day of 2012, the building at 111 South St. Joseph Street in downtown South Bend simply was the College Football Hall of Fame to the entire country…
- 1995–todayThe Military Honor Park at the airport
A dream of a few, 1995: The county's newest memorial ground is its largest, and it grew the other way from the courthouse monument: not by appropriation but by accretion.
- 1996First presences on the web, as the archive dates them
The University of Notre Dame's nd.edu was captured on November 12, 1996, and Tire Rack's commercial site six days later, on November 18, 1996 — the university and the tire retailer are, on the surviving record, the city's twin first presences on the web.
- 1996Danny Pinter: Adams High School to the Colts' Line
Daniel James Pinter was born June 19, 1996, in South Bend, "I've lived here my whole life, I have played football here my whole life," as he put it on draft day — and played at John Adams High School, a two-time All-State selection as a tight end and defender.
- 1996–2011Robert Bosch in South Bend — the brake works' second successor line
Bendix passed to Allied in 1983 and into AlliedSignal, and in 1996 Robert Bosch GmbH acquired AlliedSignal's global brake operations entire, the purchase through which Bosch entered the foundation-brake sector in earnest.
- 1997Leif O'Connell · the random shootings of February 1997
On 28 January 1997 O'Connell, with Jerred Kahlenbeck, had visited the Midwest Gun Exchange in South Bend, where O'Connell made a deposit on a Lorcin .38 semi-automatic pistol; he purchased the gun on 11 February.
- 1997The city's own key: the documented presentations
The earliest documented here is a physician's: Dr. George B. Plain received the Key to the City in 1997, and at the community dinner marking his retirement the mayors and the county gave him the keys of South Bend, Mishawaka, and St. Joseph County together, with Mayor Stephen Luecke proclaiming 3 April 2001 as Dr. George B. Plain Day.
- 1997–1999Ronald Kahlenbeck's sentence — settled from the appellate opinion
The banked item: The Murders file carries the February 1997 west-side shootings — five people shot between February 12 and 26, one fatally — and Kahlenbeck's conviction, with the sentence's exact terms held for the appellate opinion.
- 1997–2012Stephen J. Luecke: fifteen years
When Kernan resigned in January 1997, the vacancy was filled under the party-caucus law by the votes of the city's Democratic precinct committeemen; Luecke, Kernan's endorsed candidate, was chosen unanimously and took office on 3 January 1997…
- 1997–2026The Other Districts — the Register's Survey of the Neighborhoods
The St. Casimir Parish Historic District, listed 16 January 1997, takes in the Polish parish complex on the southwest side — church, school and rectory ground bounded by Arnold and West Sample streets and the former Conrail tracks; the congregations are Religion's, the district as a built ensemble is the register's.
- 1998Niko Kavadas: The Newest Name on the Register
Nikolos Siade Kavadas was born October 27, 1998, in South Bend, grew up in Granger, and went to Penn High School — which stands in Mishawaka, and is printed as Mishawaka's here as everywhere in this history.
- 1998Kennedy's Kitchen and the Irish session scene
Kennedy's Kitchen, a seven-musician traditional Irish band led by joHn Kennedy — the styling is his — has been based in South Bend since 1998.
- 1998–2002The appellate line of 1998–99 · Lee, Warner and Alkhalidi
Three South Bend cases of 1998 and 1999 reached the Indiana Supreme Court and stand affirmed there, and they are entered together, at the size their record carries.
- 1998–2007The Euclid Quartet at IUSB
The city's resident quartet: The Euclid Quartet was formed in Cleveland in 1998 — a graduate quartet out of Kent State, named for Cleveland's Euclid Avenue — and since 2007 it has been the faculty string quartet-in-residence at Indiana University South Bend, where its members teach and coach chamber music at the Raclin School of the Arts.
- 1998–todayThe county prosecutors
Michael Barnes held the office through 1998. Chris Toth defeated him that year and was prosecutor from 1999 to 2002.
- 1999–todayThe Leighton fortune as a giving institution: the award, the hospital names, and a foundation of 150 million
The award endowment: In 1999 Judd and Mary Morris Leighton and the Leighton-Oare Foundation gave 2.1 million dollars to the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County to create the Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence — an endowed award, carrying a 100,000 dollar challenge grant, for the county's outstanding charity…