Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)'s photos

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame university, consecrated in 1888.

Notre Dame administration building, completed in 1879 but the dome was not finished until 1886.

I was surprised by the elegance, size, and spaciousness (and thus suggested wealth) of the Notre Dame campus. Most private, religion-affiliated, schools that I have visited have much less open space, and have grounds that do not feel as manicured. In this picture is the dome of the Administration building, often referred to simply as Golden Dome.

As I discovered in multiple older cities in Indiana, many downtown areas are doing surprising well, with small retail, entertainment, and dining business that seem to be quite successful at keeping the areas alive and thriving. Admittedly, I did not expect this. I haven’t done any representative sample, but it seems that in much of the western U.S., the downtown areas of older small cities are not doing nearly as well as what is visible here.

Opened in 1924 as vaudeville and movie theater and, like many other older city theaters, converted into a performing arts center that seems to have been central in keeping downtown Elkhart thriving. www.thelerner.com/about.html

This was something that I was glad to see up close. Having grown up in the South where electric locomotives didn’t exist, I was surprised many years ago when seeing one of these in a picture and remained curious about them after that, but never saw one up close. It’s a GG 1, they were built by General Electric from 1934 to 1943, with the last one being retired in 1983. Probably because the pictures I had seen of them were in use in New York, I assumed that New York Central was the primary user – it turns out they were built for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad_class_GG1

You could actually climb up into the cab of the steam locomotive on the right, but it required a ladder climb that I didn’t want to do without someone behind to watch me fall…

Much of the equipment they had was fairly accessible, but see the next picture. This photo was taken from inside the diesel locomotive seen in the previous picture. Looking at this setup, I wonder what I was fantasizing about when I was a child and dreamed of being a train engineer….

Exploring what was in the general South Bend area, I found that there was a museum in nearby Elkhart called the “National New York Central Railroad Museum”. Since the New York Central had been considered one of the primary railroads back during the peak of railroading and was particularly famous for its 20th Century Limited passenger train between Chicago and NYC, I decided to go take a look. The museum turned out to be nowhere near what I hoped, but the expedition to Elkhart was interesting. The locomotive here is an EMD E8 built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) between 1949 and 1954; New York Central had 62 of them. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_E8

Opened in 1929, Union Station served the New York Central and the Grand Trunk Western railroads. Though not very visible, the name of the two railroads are at the top of the building, alongside the “Union Station.” The station is no longer in operation; Amtrak trains stop at a South Shore Line station that is to the west. The building behind it is the former Studebaker auto plant, which is apparently where Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced his candidacy for President. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Station_(South_Bend,_Indiana)

Continuing Studebaker’s early efforts with electric cars? I have the same car (different color) at home, it’s a Ford C-MAX Energi Plug-in Hybrid.

At the County Court building, the St. Joseph County Civil War Monument, erected in 1905 in honor of the Union soldiers who fought in the war. I found the year that the statue was created to be interesting – it seems to be right in the middle of the times when statues honoring Confederate soldiers were being erected all over the South. I wonder if that is the case, and if the timing was intentional. Source: www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=53896

In grateful recognition of the patriotism, services, and sacrifices of our soldiers in the war of the Union, we, the people of St. Joseph County, have erected this monument. Source: www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=53896

In a central plaza in downtown South Bend, a statue of Martin Luther King joining hands with Theodore M. Hesburgh, the former president of the University of Notre Dame. The statue is based on a famous photograph of their joining hands at a rally in Soldier Field in Chicago in 1964. Source: www.southbendtribune.com/news/education/sculpture-honoring-mlk-and-father-hesburgh-is-unveiled-in-downtown/article_7d1ece24-7af2-558c-a708-3fa1c49daa24.html

Opened in 1921 as the Blackstone theatre, renamed State in 1929 but despite the elegant exterior, it appears to have had a spotty history of openings and closures, with some destructive remodelings. The second link below has some interesting, but sad, pictures of the interior. Source: cinematreasures.org/theaters/2667 afterthefinalcurtain.net/2019/07/18/state-theatre-south-bend-indiana

A subtle, but attractive, building that was originally the home of Farmers Security Bank. It looked more distinctive up close than it photographs; built in 1915 of dark brown brick, it has a terra cotta trim that doesn’t really stand out unless you’re looking closely.

As close as I get on the detail terra cotta trim on the Farmers Security Bank building in South Bend.

In the South in my youth of the 1950’s and 1960’s, just about everyone drove Ford or GM products, with a few Chrysler people. My parents were always running against the norm, driving American Motors, the few foreign makes that were around in those days, a couple of Kaisers (my favorite), and my brothers continued that tradition by buying used Studebakers – one of my first cars in high school was a Studebaker. With that family tradition, and hearing that there was a major Studebaker museum in South Bend, I had to visit. The exhibit was quite good and I learned a lot -- what follows is just a sprinkle of what I found interesting. ….. For some reason I had assumed that car manufacturers started out as that, car manufacturers – as tinkerers who figured out had to make an auto, and grew from there. It was rather surprising in the museum to realize how stupid my notion had been. I had somehow never realized that horse-drawn wagons had actually been mass-produced and that there were major manufacturers with coast-to-coast dealerships and even sales overseas. As indicated in this picture, Studebaker cars weren’t some new thing basically started from scratch, but actually a development from an existing, and very well-developed business of horse-drawn carriages. Even as I write this, I’m still amazed at my lack of knowledge of industry prior to autos.