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 campus, to the western edge of Mishawaka at Logan Street — where Mishawaka's riverwalk begins. TrailLink measures the named trail at 3 miles. The River Valley Trail partnership counts the piece at 1.1 miles — "of Northside Trails through River Park, connecting the South Bend and Mishawaka trail systems" — a figure that counts the connecting reach rather than the whole named trail. Both stand. Between 26th and 27th Streets the trail passes through stone walls built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, the oldest built fabric on any trail in this section. At Howard Park it connects directly to the East Bank Trail, and near its northern end a pedestrian bridge over the river ties it to the West Bank Walkway. No construction date for the Northside Trail appears in the city or county publications read for this section; its building record is a named gap, and the trail is printed here at its documented present.

Sources:

1. TrailLink (Rails-to-Trails Conservancy), Northside Trail (IN) (the 3-mile length; the route, the WPA stone walls, the Howard Park and West Bank connections).
2. Indiana Michigan River Valley Trail partnership accounting, published by the City of Niles, 2020 (the 1.1-mile River Park connecting piece).