South Bend, IN

South Bend takes its name from the southernmost bend of the St. Joseph River, and its fame from the campus at the bend's edge: the University of Notre Dame, founded by French missionaries in 1842, whose Golden Dome, Basilica and "Touchdown Jesus" mural preside over the most storied tradition in American college football and a university of international rank. The campus's DeBartolo Performing Arts Center and the leprechaun-haunted stadium share the same postcode of devotion.

The city below the campus made vehicles: Studebaker, born here as a blacksmith's wagon works in 1852, was the only American company to travel the whole road from covered wagons to automobiles, and its marvellous museum — Conestogas beside Avantis, with the Lincoln family carriages — keeps the memory of the plants that closed in 1963. The archive's stage is the Morris — the 1922 movie palace on North Michigan Street, restored as the Morris Performing Arts Center (the source records' "Morris Civic Auditorium" carries its earlier name — a note for the registry), home of the South Bend Symphony Orchestra and the city's touring concerts. The river gave the site, the wagons gave the wealth, and the Dome gave the legend: South Bend keeps all three polished.