Category Archives: History

The former Hotel Elkhart (left) and the former St. Joseph Valley Bank (center)

This isn’t a great shot, but as I walked out the back of the IUSB Elkhart Center this evening (without a coat for the first time this year) it caught my eye. Elkhart has changed a lot — a lot of the more historic buildings are gone, victims of modernization, neglect or both, but these are two that remain. Neither fulfills its original purpose anymore, but it was nice to see them, in the warm glow of the streetlights, reminders of what the town used to look like. Standing in the parking lot of of one of Elkhart’s newest buildings, I snapped this with my cellphone, which was the only camera I had on hand, for a change.

I have pleasant memories of the old Hotel Elkhart, attending high school events in the Athenian Ballroom on the top floor. It was a full-fledged hotel then, but downtown hotels, in smaller cities anyway, are a thing of the past, something Elkhart learned the hard way when it finally bulldozed the Midway Motor Lodge to make way for Central Park.

The bank building is now the Midwest Museum of Art, which uses the original bank vault as one of its special galleries. St. Joseph Valley Bank changed its name in the late seventies (to the annoyingly meaningless Midwest Commerce Banking Company), moved a little northwest eventually morphing into another arm of Chase Bank, and now the memory of it as a local institution is fading. But the original bank building in this picture is still pretty impressive, and the art museum has made good use of it.

Even though it’s often necessary, I hate seeing old buildings disappear. I’m glad these two are still with us, standing guard, witnesses to history, reminding us where we came from.