Date of formation:                 1867
Origin of Name:                      Sharp Southward Bend of Crooked Creek
Township’s Territory:          Formerly parts of Kiskiminetis and Plum Creek
Area:                                         About 22.5 square miles or 14,400 acres

Population of South Bend Township

Date                Population                Date                Population
1850                1266                        1910                798
1860                1571                        1920                805
1870                1633                        1930                854
1880                1151                        1940                804
1890                1116                        1950                939
1900                875                          1960                 916
                                   (Population at 1990 Census: 1304)

Quotations and Other Information (Sources Unknown) “Along that portion of Crooked Creek in the southwestern part of this township, near the Indiana County line, some of the earliest settlements made by whites in this county were made. There were thirty-five original tracts in this township, the warrants for them being dated as early as 1773.”

“On the tract originally owned by John L. Howell in 1776, on Crooked Creek, near the present town of South Bend, Charles Campbell, in 1805, erected a grist and saw mill, it being many years the only mill for settlers from miles around in Armstrong and Indiana Counties. It was called Frantz’s Mill, from Jacob Frantz who owned it in 1813. It was later operated by W. E. Fryor.”

“Absalom Woodward was assessed with a grist mill and saw mill in 1811, which he built on the south side of Plumcreek, nears its junction with Crooked Creek. Reuben Allshouse, who owned the mills in 1876, called the settlement around them “Idaho,” from the fact of his having made a fortune in that western state. This settlement is still called by the same name.”

Idaho is located almost directly across Crooked Creek from the Keystone Generating Station. Two miles southwest, at a place now called South Bend, was the store of Hugh Brown in 1805.

Edited and notes by Maury Tosi, 2000