When South Bend was incorporated as a city 150 years ago, Schuyler Colfax, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the area's famous resident, could not have imagined how the little community, about 5,000 population, would grow. Or how those industrious Studebaker brothers, building some nice wagons, were also building a company that would mass produce something called automobiles. Or how the demise of that automotive business nearly a century later would strike a terrible economic blow.
The Rev. Edward Sorin could not have imagined how the little school he founded just north of the city would grow to become the prestigious University of Notre Dame of today. Or how 80,000 people would fill a stadium on fall weekends for a game called football, with millions watching from coast to coast and around the world on something called television. Or how computers would instantly provide students with more information than found in all the books in the school's library then.
We can't imagine what South Bend will be like 50 years from now for the city's 200th birthday.
We can't imagine what South Bend will be like 50 years from now for the city's 200th birthday.
South Bend was the site of a town before the city was incorporated. It grew from 1,653 in the 1850 Census to more than twice that, 3,832 in 1860. City government could provide better streets and sanitation and adequate fire and police protection, needed for businesses and for residents working in start-up manufacturing along the St. Joseph River and in developing commerce and service areas.
The bloody Civil War was over. Survivors who fought in it were back.
Colfax, who went on to be vice president, had declined an invitation to accompany President Abraham Lincoln to Ford's Theatre a month before South Bend's incorporation. A House speaker opposed to slavery could have been an additional target for John Wilkes Booth.
Manufacturing boomed, with Studebaker rolling out wagons and carriages and finally horseless carriages, with Oliver plows tilling on the nation's farms and with Singer machines sewing throughout the nation.