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Trails: The Riverwalk, the Park Trails, and the Buffalo Run
Three kinds of trail stand on this ground, and this account takes them in three passes. The first is the paved riverwalk system — one continuous path along the St. Joseph River that two cities built toward each other until they met, extended since by rail-trails, a college corridor, and a converted railroad bridge. The second is the walking ground: the nature trails of the city parks and of the county parks that ring the city on county ground, printed as county wherever the ground is the county's. The third pass runs a test this section was ordered to run honestly — whether a groomed, designated snowmobile trail touches this county at all. It does. St. Joseph County holds one of the four snowmobile trails in the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' cooperative state system, and the trail's whole documented record is printed here at its full size.
Every mileage in this section is printed as the body that maintains the trail publishes it, with the year of the figure where the publication carries one. Where two maintaining bodies publish different lengths for the same trail — and they do, repeatedly — both figures stand with their carriers named. Nothing is averaged, and no total for the system is offered, because the published counts count different things: one counts a planned trail, one counts the connected trail, and one counts only the named paved segments. A trail that appears in a national database but in no maintaining body's publication is named as a gap, not counted.
The Ancestor: The Portage Path
The seventeenth century to the present street map
The descent: Every trail in this section descends from a footpath. The oldest documented trail on this ground is the portage between the St. Joseph River and the Kankakee — the carrying place where travelers left the river at the…
One River, Two Cities: The Riverwalk Whole
The twentieth century's end to the present
One trail: The riverwalk is one trail that happens to cross a city line. From the Mishawaka line west through South Bend's downtown, and from downtown north along both banks toward the state line, the paved path along the St.…
The Partnership's Count: Thirty-Four Planned, Twenty-Four Connected, Seventeen Named
The partnership's accounting, 2020; the friends group's count, 2026
Three numbers: Three published numbers describe this trail system, and all three are true of different things. The Indiana Michigan River Valley Trail partnership — the cities, townships, counties, and park departments along the…
The East Bank Trail
The riverwalk's east side, Howard Park to the colleges
The east side: The East Bank Trail is the riverwalk's north–south spine on the east bank. It runs from Howard Park north along the river, past Governor Joseph Kernan Park, to the edges of Holy Cross College and the University of…
The Northside Trail
Howard Park east to the Mishawaka line
The joining piece: The Northside Trail is the piece that joins two cities. It follows the river's east bank along Northside Boulevard from Howard Park east, past Veterans Memorial Park and the Indiana University South Bend…
The West Bank Walkway
Downtown's west-bank link
The downtown link: The shortest named trail in the system is the downtown connector. The West Bank Walkway runs 0.6 of a mile along the river's west bank downtown, ending at Plaza Park; midway, a converted railroad trestle crosses the waterway to Howard Park, tying the west bank into the East Bank–Northside junction. It is printed at the size the record gives it: a short, built link whose trestle — a railroad structure carrying walkers now — belongs to the same pattern as the Coal Line's bridge, told below: this system's signature move is putting its trails on the railroad's old ground and the railroad's old bridges.
Sources:
- TrailLink (Rails-to-Trails Conservancy), West Bank Walkway (IN) (the 0.6-mile length; the trestle connection to Howard Park; the Plaza Park end).
The Riverside Trail
Opened in phases, 2007–2008; the west bank north
The opening: The Riverside Trail's opening is documented to the day, by the city itself. On 19 July 2007, Mayor Stephen J. Luecke led walkers, runners, skaters, and bicyclists through a ribbon to open the trail's first 1.75…
The LaSalle Trail
The county's trail, Roseland to the Michigan line
The county's segment: North of the city, the trail belongs to the county. The LaSalle Trail is St. Joseph County Parks' segment of the river-valley corridor: an arrow-straight paved trail running from Roseland Town Park north…
The SR 933 Pathway
Opened September 2020; the colleges' link
The gap, closed: The gap between the East Bank Trail and the LaSalle Trail was closed by the colleges. In September 2020 a new twelve-foot-wide pathway opened on the west side of Indiana 933 between Angela Boulevard and Douglas…
The Link Trail
Built 2024; downtown to Notre Dame
The newest trail: The newest trail in the system was built to close the distance between the city and the university. The Link is a 1.5-mile dedicated running, walking, and biking trail connecting downtown South Bend to the…
The Coal Line Trail
Phases opened 2022 and 2024; Phase III to build in 2027
The coal road: The Coal Line Trail runs on the railroad that fed the colleges' boilers. The trail follows the old Notre Dame & Western coal line — the short railroad, later Norfolk Southern's, that hauled coal to the Holy Cross…
The Mountain-Bike Trails
Built and kept by volunteers; three systems
Built by riders: The city's mountain-bike trails were built by the riders. Three natural-surface systems stand in and around the city, and one organization runs through all three: the Northern Indiana Mountain Bike Association …
The Bicycle's Own Civic History
1896 to the present; at survey size
The political bicycle: Before the trails, the bicycle was a political fact in this city. The Indiana Historical Bureau's survey of the state's 1890s bicycle era, compiled from The Cycle Club Bulletin of 13 June 1896 and the…
Rum Village: The City's Woodland Trails
The south side's nature ground
The city's woodland: Rum Village is the city's own hiking ground. The park department's page for Rum Village Park describes 160 acres of natural woodland, a designated nature area, on the city's south side off Ewing Avenue…
Potawatomi Park
The river park and the zoo grounds
The park itself: Potawatomi Park's walking ground is the park itself. The park on the river's east side — established in the first years of the twentieth century, its ground and its zoo told in full in The Zoo in this history — carries paved park paths through its lawns and along the river, and the zoo's own paths within its fence. No maintaining body publishes a trail mileage for Potawatomi Park, and this section invents none: the park stands at its documented size, as the city's great river park whose walking is done on park paths, in a system whose measured trails lie elsewhere. The zoo's school and field-trip life in the park is told in the zoo's own account.
Sources:
- The Zoo (this history's own banked account of Potawatomi Park and the Potawatomi Zoo).
Pinhook Park and the Native Tree Trail
The west bank's teaching trail
The teaching trail: Pinhook Park's trail teaches the trees. Pinhook, the city park on the river's west bank where the Riverside Trail passes, carries the Pinhook Park Native Tree Trail: a signed walking trail on which the park…
St. Patrick's County Park
The county frame; opened 1978
The county's largest: The largest trail system near the city is the county's, on the city's northern edge. St. Patrick's County Park — county ground, printed as county — spans, in the county parks department's own trail-map…
Bendix Woods County Park
The county frame; the county's first park, 1966
The first county park: Bendix Woods was Studebaker's proving-ground woods before it was the county's first park. The county's own brochure tells the transfer whole: "Bendix Woods County Park was St. Joseph County's first county…
Spicer Lake Nature Preserve
The county frame; acquired 1978
Two sizes: Spicer Lake is a county park wrapped around a state nature preserve, and the two have different sizes. In 1978, the county's master plan records, the park board — assisted by the South Bend Audubon Society, the Indiana…
Lydick Bog Nature Preserve
Acquired 2016; expanded 2026
The newest ground: The bog is the newest hiking ground in this section, and it grew this year. Lydick Bog Nature Preserve, at 25898 US 20 on the city's western edge, protects one of the last remaining sphagnum bog habitats in…
Ferrettie/Baugo Creek County Park
The county frame; opened 1987, at Osceola
The eastern park: The county's eastern park walks a creek with a portage past. Henry R. Ferrettie/Baugo Creek County Park — named for a former county commissioner, on Ash Road at Osceola on the county's eastern edge — opened to…
Potato Creek State Park
The county frame; the state's park on county ground
The state's park: The county's largest hiking system belongs to the state. Potato Creek State Park, at North Liberty in the county's south — a state park on St. Joseph County ground, printed at the county frame — publishes its…
The Snowmobile Test, Answered
The state system, as published
The verdict: The question was whether a designated snowmobile trail touches this county. It does. Indiana's snowmobile trails are few and northern — the Department of Natural Resources publishes "more than 200 miles of snowmobile…
The Buffalo Run
The county's western half; the state line to State Road 23
The route: The Buffalo Run crosses the county's open western half, town to town. The Michiana Trail Riders Coalition, the club that operates and maintains it, describes the trail in its own words: "the 70 mile long Buffalo Run…
The Club and the Program
The club from 1983; the program from 1976
The mechanism: The Buffalo Run exists because a South Bend club leases a county's worth of farmers' fields every winter. The club's own history is short and printed whole: "Our organization was established in 1983. We rode…
The System as It Stands
November 2026
November 2026: As this section is written, the system's building is nearly done and its growing edge has moved to the ends. In the city: The Link stands open since the fall of 2024, its ribbon cut in April 2025; the Coal Line…