When the global Spanish Flu pandemic struck in autumn 1918, South Bend wasn't spared. The deadly illness closed schools, prompted a ban on public gatherings and killed hundreds locally. Guests on this episode are Drs. Gail English and Nels Leininger.

The first baseball games in South Bend were played during the Civil War. The game has changed a lot since then. Listen to the history of pro and semi-pro baseball, from the South Bend Greenstockings to the South Bend Blue…

The Grand Kankakee Marsh was a huge wetlands of nearly a million acres that had its headwaters just west of South Bend. Host Margaret Fosmoe discusses what happened to the marsh with Randy Ray, executive director of The History Museum…

Episode 13 takes listeners back to the 19th century, when inventor John Comley Birdsell moved to South Bend and founded a major factory making clover hulling machines. Birdsell Manufacturing Co. later expanded to produce farm wagons and carriages, becoming one…

Episode 12 takes listeners back to the mid-20th century, when South Bend's annual soap box derby race was a popular community event. And, more specifically, to the year a local boy raced to the national championship. South Bend Tribune reporter…

Margaret Fosmoe hosts her podcast: South Bend Time Machine

Episode 10 of the South Bend Time Machine podcast takes listeners back to the 1940s and the founding of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. South Bend Tribune reporter Margaret Fosmoe interviews special guest Betsy Jochum, 97, who was a…

Episode 9 takes listeners back to the mid-19th century, when South Bend founder Alexis Coquillard set out to create the Kankakee Mill Race, an industrial raceway to connect the St. Joseph River with the Kankakee River west of town. The…

The Studebaker wagon and carriage company started in South Bend in 1852. When the company began making automobiles in 1902, those vehicles were produced in Detroit. In fact, for nearly 20 years, all Studebaker autos were made in the Motor…

In 1928, nearly 200 men tried to run from Los Angeles to New York in hopes of winning a $25,000 cash prize. The three-month foot race came to be known as the Bunion Derby. The racers came through South Bend…