635 South Main Street_Survey Cards

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Ground was broken July 18, 1907 for a new Administration Building to house the offices of the Studebaker Bros. Manufacturing Company in South Bend. The company had sold over a million wagons by this time and had begun to make a reputation in the manufacture of automobiles. Ever-increasing business and the need to accommodate a growing white-collar staff influenced the decision to replace the company's Italianate-styled office structure on South Lafayette Street with a "thoroughly modern, up to date, office building and repository."[1] The decision was finalized at a Board of Directors meeting in March of 1907; in May architect Solon Spencer Beman was chosen to design the building; the Administration Building was completed two years later, in 1909. Located between South Main, South Lafayette, Bronson Street and what was then the Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railroad tracks, this substantial structure in 1992 continues to be an integral part of the cultural landscape of South Bend's downtown; the Administration Building remains as the most significant Studebaker building left in the city. It was here that the twentieth-century version of the Studebaker manufacturing phenomenon was organized and directed. It was also here that the company maintained a museum dedicated to the protection and display of their world-famous products. The building is significant and worthy of protection for several reasons: 1. as the center of the Studebaker firm's management, planning and social activities in the twentieth century; 2. as an important landmark of the city's built -environment; 3. as a structure designed by one of the Midwest's most influential architects of the nineteenth century, Solon Spencer Beman, and; 4. as a local example of Renaissance Revival -influenced architecture. Since 1970 the structure has been occupied by the South Bend School Corporation and is now in use as their Administration Building; it is unknown what future uses the School Corporation may make of the building. Rated as Significant on the Indiana Sites and Structures Survey (S-12) and eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the building is deserving of being designated by ordinance as a Local Historic Landmark. The Historic Preservation Commission voted on April 20, 1992 to recommend to the South Bend Common Council the designation of this important structure as a Local Historic Landmark. Following is a historic and architectural evaluation of the building.