The memorials and the namings

1903 – present

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1903): the city's oldest war memorial stands at 206 West Washington, on the courthouse ground downtown. Built in 1903 on the south lawn of the third county courthouse, with bronze figures by Rudolf Schwarz to a design by McDonnel & Sons of New York, it commemorated the fallen of all the services in the wars fought to that date — the Civil War generation's monument to its own dead. When the County-City Building rose, the monument was moved to the courthouse's north lawn, where it stands.

The Swanson Post, New Carlisle: the one naming of a veterans' post for an individual local man that the documents verify is recorded by the 1921 Gold Star roll itself: the American Legion post at New Carlisle was named for Private James W. Swanson of that town, the Studebaker employee who died at Coblenz on 8 March 1919. South Bend's own Pulaski Post 357 of the American Legion, on West Sample Street, is named for Casimir Pulaski — the Polish general of the Revolution, a national hero and not a local man — and is printed as such. The namesakes of the city's other posts were not verified in the sources reached, and no names are claimed for them here.

Military Honor Park and Museum (1995– ): the city's living memorial stands at 4300 Veterans Drive, at the entrance to South Bend International Airport. It began in 1995, by the park's own account "as a dream of a few": first a mounted RT-33 training jet, then grounds laid out as a pentagon for the five branches of service, with five bronze service plaques, flags, and a five-sided black granite monument at its heart, and more than 3,500 bricks bearing the names of military personnel. Its stated mission is "to recognize, acknowledge and pay tribute to all veterans, living and deceased, from each of the five military branches," and its museum holds artifacts of every American conflict. In May 2011 the park dedicated a granite Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge monument, funded in part by Geza Csapo of Osceola, a Battle of the Bulge veteran of the 32nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron.

The Clarke Memorial Fountain (1986), boundary-printed: on Notre Dame's campus stands the county's largest single memorial to the modern wars — the university's, not the city's. Dedicated on 17 October 1986, designed by John Burgee, a Notre Dame graduate of 1956, with Philip Johnson, the fountain honors the roughly five hundred Notre Dame alumni who died in the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam; "Pro Patria et Pace" — for country and peace — is inscribed in its base, and the university's ROTC cadets keep a twenty-four-hour vigil at it each Veterans Day. The university had kept its roll in stone's predecessor form since the war itself: in August 1942 it dedicated a plaque in the vestibule of Sacred Heart Church carrying the names of its dead, "other names to be added as the sad occasions arise." Freedom Memorial at St. Patrick's County Park, the county's park north of the city, keeps a section of steel from the World Trade Center in memory of 11 September 2001. Mishawaka's Veterans Plaza at Battell Park is that city's memorial, and is not counted here.

The gap, named: no street, school, or athletic field in South Bend was verified in the sources reached as named for an individual local fallen man. The brief for this section asked for those namings; the record reached does not carry them, and the file prints the absence rather than supplying names.

Sources:

1. Building South Bend (University of Notre Dame), property record ND-SB-03031 — the Soldiers and Sailors Monument: 1903, 206 West Washington, Schwarz figures, McDonnel & Sons design, the move to the north lawn; image credit The History Museum.
2. Gold Star Honor Roll of Indiana (1921), St. Joseph County section — the Swanson post naming, recorded in Swanson's own entry.
3. Military Honor Park and Museum — the park's mission and history as carried by the Battle of the Bulge Association and Visit Indiana (the 1995 beginning, the pentagon design, the RT-33, the bricks); South Bend Tribune, 31 May 2011, on the Battle of the Bulge monument and Geza Csapo.
4. University of Notre Dame, Office of Military & Veterans Affairs and hospitality guides — the Clarke Memorial Fountain: dedication 1986, the roughly 500 alumni, the inscription, the ROTC vigil; Notre Dame Observer, 18 November 1996, for the dedication date and the Burgee–Johnson design; The Notre Dame Alumnus, October 1942, for the Sacred Heart plaque.
5. Visit South Bend Mishawaka, Memorial Day guide — the Freedom Memorial at St. Patrick's County Park; American Legion Pulaski Post 357, post records (5414 West Sample Street).