Birdsell Mansion, Kamm and Schellinger Brewery on 10 Most Endangered list
Two St. Joseph County properties are on Indiana Landmarks' annual list of 10 Most Endangered landmarks. The Birdsell Mansion is on the list for the first time, but the Kamm and Schellinger Brewery was also on last year's list.
10 Most Endangered in 2022:
- Birdsell Mansion, South Bend
- Kamm and Schellinger Brewery, Mishawaka (repeat from 2021)
- Cades Mill Covered Bridge, Fountain County
- Geter Means House, Gary
- Hulman Building & Garage, Evansville
- Knox County Poor Asylum, Vincennes
- First Friends Church, Marion
- Stinesville Commercial Buildings, Stinesville
- Courthouse Annex Building, New Castle (repeat from 2021)
- James M. Shields Memorial Gymnasium, Seymour (repeat from 2021)
Places on the list face multiple problems including abandonment, neglect, dilapidation, obsolete use, unreasonable above-market asking price, or owners who simply lack money for repairs.
“Indiana Landmarks uses its 10 Most Endangered list in several ways. Sometimes it serves an educational role. It functions as an advocacy tool. And it can assist in raising funds needed to save a place,” says Marsh Davis, president of the nonprofit preservation organization. “Every listing comes with significant challenges. In all cases, when an endangered place lands on our list, we commit to seeking solutions that lead to rescue and revitalization,” he adds.
Demolition has claimed only 20 of the 159 Most Endangered sites since the list was introduced in 1991, while 99 places are completely restored or no longer endangered.
Indiana Landmarks provided the following information on the two St. Joseph County properties:
Birdsell Mansion, 511 West Colfax Avenue, South Bend
When it was built in 1898, J.B. Birdsell’s mansion rivalled Clem Studebaker’s Tippecanoe Place and J.D. Oliver’s Copshaholm in opulence and prestige. Today, however, its ongoing neglect is cause for growing alarm.
Born into a manufacturing dynasty, J.B. “Ben” Birdsell was one of the city’s industrial titans. His father, agricultural inventor John C. Birdsell, moved to South Bend from New York in 1864 to produce an innovative machine for threshing and hulling clover. Eventually, J.B. took over operations at the company and commissioned the city’s leading architectural firm, Parker & Austin, to design a suitably prominent home for his family. With hardwood paneling, ornate fireplaces, and a third-floor ballroom, the new house fit the bill.
An absentee owner holds the house today. It’s been vacant for more than a decade, with a growing list of code violations. Water seeping in through missing windows and leaking gutters is cause for increasing concern. The size of the house and extent of damage will make repurposing it a challenge, but the Birdsell Mansion deserves a chance to recapture its elite status.
Kamm and Schellinger Brewery, 100 Center Street, Mishawaka
For nearly a century, brewery operations flourished along Mishawaka’s St. Joseph River. Kamm and Schellinger Brewery operated there from 1887 to 1951, at one time producing 30,000 barrels of beer a year in a complex of buildings dating from the mid-1800s to early 1900s.
After the brewery closed, developers adapted the site in the 1970s as 100 Center, a thriving complex of shops, residences, restaurants, and businesses. Beginning in the late ‘80s, 100 Center began losing tenants to newer malls, and earlier this year one of the few remaining businesses—a restaurant housed in the brewery’s former boiler house—closed for good. Several other structures in the historic complex are vacant and dilapidated, including the original four-story brewery building dating to 1853.
Since we added Kamm and Schellinger to our 10 Most Endangered list last year, the City purchased a vacant adjacent building with plans to demolish it—a move that boosts development potential for the historic complex. Buyers have expressed interest in the brewery, but the owner remains unresponsive. In the meantime, a tax sale on the property complicates the site’s prospects.
The Kamm and Schellinger Brewery is the last of a thriving industrial area along the Mishawaka riverfront and one of the area’s few remaining examples of pre-Civil War architecture. With a long list of code violations and accelerating decay, finding a viable plan for the complex is challenging. But the buildings’ solid masonry construction and significant local history merit a chance at rehabilitation.