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NPI form 164044 ("Q United States Department of the Interior National Park Service CW AAWM Na 1C4 -X18 10 National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet E 4 East Bank Multiple Property Listing Section number, Page St. Joseph . County, Indiana also donated to the Catholic Church for a church site. Meanwhile, between 1830 and 1832, Father Stephen Badin had amassed a large site north of the town, encompassing hundreds of acres, purchased from the government and early settlers. Its history reached back to the seventeenth century when the gently rolling land graced by two lakes was named Ste -Marie -des -Lacs by the French Jesuit, Claude Allouez. Badin was a secular -missionary priest who came to the northern Indiana frontier in 1830. He had erected a log cabin on his tract, but in 1835 he sold it to the Vincennes diocese in the hope that a charitable and/or educational institution would be established there.9 Later, this site would have tremendous importance for the community of South Bend and far-reaching influence on the East Bank area. River Power The fall of the waters of the St. Joseph River promised new energy for • the pioneer community along its bank. The first industries used water power to process the fruit of the surrounding agricultural lands. An 1880 historian would later describe it: "The city is surrounded by a.rich and highly cultivated agricultural region. The beautiful prairies of Terre Coupee, Portage, Harris, Palmer and Sumption are within the county, covered with productive farms and celebrated for their large yield of all kinds of grain. South and southeast of the city are large tracts of heavily timbered lands, furnishing an abundance of the best walnut, cherry, poplar and oak lumber." io But before this optimistic vision could be realized, the swamps would have to be drained and the great St. Joseph tamed. In 1835, steps, were taken toward this end by several New York state entrepreneurs when they purchased the water power and rights at South Bend from Alexis Coquillard. The latter gentleman had sunk his energies into the notion of excavating a "race" which would connect the Kankakee and St. Joseph Rivers, and was preoccupied with this project at the time. e Howard, pp. 351 - 356. 9 Thomas J. Schlereth, The University of Notre Dame, A Portrait of Its History and Campus, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976; pp - 3 -6. 4134Charles C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana ..., Chicago: Charles C. Chapman & Co., 1880. p. 860.