Howard Park's Namesake Wrote South Bend's Story

Timothy Howard was a lot of things, including St. Joseph County's most important historian.

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED SEPTEMBER 5, 2025

It's a warm summer evening and Howard Park is alive: revelers at the Public House order another pint, children scream and chase each other around the playground, a couple holds hands as they saunter alongside the river, a roller blader in a hurry disappears around a bridge in the distance. It's a scene that's been adapted to the times, but it's not an altogether new phenomenon.

South Bend has been gathering here for more than a century.

Howard Park has changed plenty during that time, but it's had the same name for the duration of its existence. The first mention of Howard Park appeared in the South Bend Tribune in February 1894 — more than five years before the park was dedicated and open to the public.

Timothy Edward Howard was born in Ann Arbor in 1837 at the exact same time that the University of Michigan packed up and moved into town from Detroit. If anyone might have been destined to end up a Wolverine, it might have been Howard, and sure enough, his first foray into higher education came at the University of Michigan.

The Civil War interrupted Howard's collegiate experience and brought a permanent end to his Wolverine dreams. He enlisted as a part of the 12th Michigan Infantry and quickly found himself in the middle of the horrible action at the Battle of Shiloh. Shiloh was among the bloodiest battlefields the young nation had ever seen and Howard did not emerge unscathed. His wounds brought a premature end to his soldiering days, and just at the moment he seemed poised to return to life in Michigan, Howard chose a different path.

Howard — a devout Catholic — came to Notre Dame, earned his law degree, then stayed on as a professor. He lived on Cedar Street in South Bend, his home long gone and the acreage now a part of St. Joseph High School. Howard would never call Michigan home ever again.

By the 1870s, Howard was a familiar figure on the South Bend political scene, occasionally even the most visible member of the city's minority party. Howard was a Democrat in what was then a predominantly Republican town. His party affiliation worked against him in 1884 when he lost the city's mayoral race to George Loughman, but the disappointment might have been a blessing in disguise. For Howard, the best was yet to come.

Howard went on to the Indiana Senate, then climbed higher still — winning election to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1892. He served six years as a justice, helping shape state law at a time when Indiana was modernizing rapidly. All the while, he kept teaching at Notre Dame, where generations of students sat through his lectures. By the time his career ended, he'd taught everything from law to literature to astronomy to history to Latin.

In 1898, the University awarded Howard the Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious award for American Catholics. Later winners would include Dave Brubeck, Martin Sheen, Joe Biden, John F. Kennedy.

None of this was the reason to name Howard Park after the man, and in fact, it was much simpler than all of that. In 1878, during his time on the City Council, Howard had led the charge for the city to acquire the land that would become the park. And in the twenty years between the acquiring of the land and the dedication of the park, Howard hadn't done anything to tarnish either his name or his reputation.

 

 

Despite the overwhelming output of his early life, Howard's most important contributions might not have anything to do with his academic, political, or judiciary careers. That's because, later in life, Howard leaned into a new role as a historian and a memory keeper.

His book, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, was released in 1907, and it remains the most thorough and complete history of the area that's ever been written. It's a reference book — not an easy read nor a particularly fun one, but it's wildly important, and it could not have come at a more critical time.

By 1900, the earliest settlers of the region were dying out an alarming, but not unsurprising, rate. The history of the founding of St. Joseph County and its towns lived with people who would not make it to 1910. Howard acted decisively, cataloging as much history as he could into one volume and then another before his own passing in 1916.

As a Golden Domer, Howard was one of an influential handful who knew both Father Sorin and Knute Rockne. Howard even turned his historian's pen toward the University, writing a History of Notre Dame in 1895 — two years after Father Sorin's death. Howard Hall is named in his honor and so is Howard Street, just off of campus.

Judge Timothy Howard was a kind of Renaissance man, one whose life carved an impact into a storied university, the state's judiciary, American Catholicism. It certainly made an impact in South Bend, where Howard Park stands proud and beautiful after its recent reconstruction.

Howard was there for that first dedication, all the way back in 1899, where he called the park “a place of delight for all our people.” He'd probably be surprised to see the park today, and he'd probably be even more surprised to learn that it remains the largest and most visible part of his legacy, unless you happen to be a hobbyist local historian.

Timothy Howard is buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetery.

Aaron Helman is an author, historian and adventurer from South Bend. You may have seen him around South Bend drinking coffee. Learn more about his work or check out his books at aaronhelman.com.