A Privately Developed Park for Public Enjoyment

Pearl Park is a half-acre garden on the near west side of South Bend. In 2009 Megyn Edmonson, co-founder of the South Bend Greenway Conservancy, and her husband, Karl Edmonson, began acquiring four lots across the street from where they lived. The lots sat directly behind what was then the Engman Natatorium and in 2012 became the IUSB Civil Rights Heritage Center.

They turned them into the lush landscape you see today. They removed a derelict house, nurtured mature trees back to health, planted over 90 new trees and shrubs, and added a curved sidewalk, boulders, fencing, and other native landscaping. The vibrant space is now alive with birdsong, thriving worm and insect populations, pedestrians passing through and resting in it, and children at play.