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 park. Approximately 175 acres were donated to the newly formed park board by the Bendix Corporation in 1966. Prior to that, the property was owned by the Studebaker Corporation. Today the park consists of 190 acres of woods, constructed prairie, and open space." The county's 2019–2023 master plan map for the park carries its own total — 195 acres — and both stand. On the park's east end, the half-mile pine tree sign spelling out the word Studebaker and the former Studebaker Clubhouse, now the park office, stand on the National Register of Historic Places; the Studebaker-Bendix Heritage Trail walks that ground. Within the park lies a state-dedicated nature preserve — the master plan map measures it at 27 acres — offering, in the county's words, "one of the best spring wildflower displays in northern Indiana." Carlisle Hill, a glacial moraine at the park's center, is the second highest point in the county.

The trails divide by use, and the county publishes both counts with a second set in its own plan, both printed: the current trail map and brochure give "over 4 miles of rolling trails" for hikers — the 2026 map names them, the Central Trail at 0.53 of a mile, the Deneve Wildlife Loop at 0.5, the Big Tree Trail at 0.35, the Hardwoods Loop at 0.3, the Van Paris Loop at 0.2, the Black Forest Trail at 0.1, with Raccoon Run, the Sauk Trail, the Lookout Trail, and the Heritage Trail besides — and "over 5 miles of specially designed mountain bike trails managed by NIMBA," one-way, helmets required, hikers walking them against the bicycle direction. The master plan map's figures run a mile higher on both counts — five miles of hiking trails, a six-mile mountain bike trail — and the two tellings stand side by side, the brochure's being the department's current word. The park stands on Timothy Road off State Road 2 at New Carlisle, about a mile east of the LaPorte County line and fourteen miles west of downtown South Bend: county ground at the county's western side, printed as such.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County Parks, Bendix Woods County Park trail map and brochure, 2026 (the first county park, the 1966 Bendix donation of approximately 175 acres, today's 190 acres, the four-plus miles of trails, the NIMBA-managed mountain-bike trails, the nature preserve, the tree sign and clubhouse, Carlisle Hill, the named trails and their distances, the park's location).
2. St. Joseph County Parks, Bendix Woods County Park Master Plan Map 2019–2023 (the 195-acre total, the 27-acre nature preserve, the five miles of hiking trails and six-mile mountain bike trail — printed as the plan's figures against the brochure's).