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AUDIT ROW #296 · CLOSED JULY 31, 2023 · SOLD TO SAINT THOMAS MORE ACADEMY
The 1907 county home outlived its system by decades, and its ending is the best-documented event in this section. The building on Portage Avenue — opened April 4, 1907 (article 1, above) — was renamed the County Home under the 1947 law change and took the name Portage Manor in the 1980s; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 2000 (reference No. 00000670) as the St. Joseph County Infirmary [landmark record]. The county ran it as a residential home for the poor and the ill long after the asylum system that built it had dissolved, and ended it by decision, not decay: the Board of Commissioners voted the closure, and the last residents left on July 31, 2023 [South Bend Tribune, August 4, 2023]. The second life followed quickly and is printed at its current state: the commissioners approved the property's sale to Saint Thomas More Academy, reported in October 2026 — a school succeeding a poorhouse on the same 113.8 acres — while the building itself carries a proposed South Bend local-landmark designation in the preservation commission's file [WSBT and Tribune reports, 2026]. Earlier secondary accounts calling the building "slated to be destroyed" are superseded by the sale and are not printed as its state. The Manor is South Bend ground; its service was the county's, and it stands in this section at that stated strength.
Principal sources: City of South Bend landmark file (Portage Manor/St. Joseph County Infirmary; NRHP No. 00000670, listed June 15, 2000); South Bend Tribune, August 4, 2023 (the July 31, 2023 closure) and May 5, 2026; WSBT, 2026 (the Saint Thomas More Academy sale).