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2300 PORTAGE AVENUE <br />HISTORICAL CONTEXT <br />Riverview Cemetery was constructed in 1900, when a few interested citizens of South <br />Bend formed a stock company and purchased the homestead site of the James R. Miller <br />Estate for purposes of developing a suburban cemetery. Amanda Miller, widow of James <br />R. Miller, sold the old pioneer homestead to Albert Meyers, who developed the <br />Riverview Cemetery. The cemetery was to be located just north of the city at the bend of <br />the river that was historically known as the portage between the St. Joseph and Kankakee <br />Rivers. In fact, it is believed that over 300 years ago (1679) the explorer LaSalle landed <br />here after his journey up the St. Joseph River. Mr. LaSalle landed here to take advantage <br />of the portage that served as the shortest available land passage when traveling by water <br />between the St. Lawrence, the basin of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. <br />The Stock Company hired J.G. Barker, a cemetery superintendent and landscape <br />Gardner, to design fifty acres of cemetery, including walkways, avenues and burial areas. <br />To further develop the area a vast amount of timber was removed, elevations were graded <br />and depressions filled. A massive entrance at the property's southwest corner was <br />constructed of native fieldstone with solid steel and iron gates and the entire tract, which <br />had a frontage of half a mile on Portage Road was enclosed by a substantially high iron <br />fence. <br />The Riverview Cemetery Association, as the group came to be known, developed <br />Riverview with the most modern facilities available at the time. This included smooth <br />macadamized avenues, substantial receiving tomb, an attractive commodious office <br />building and chapel, and an efficient system of water works. <br />Riverview is also significant for being the site where many prominent families located <br />temple-like family mausoleums. Many of these markers bear the names of historically <br />significant families; among the names present are Studebaker, Oliver, Wyman, Moms, <br />Muessel and Brick. <br />2 <br />