A crowd lined South Michigan Street in downtown South Bend in this 1880s photograph to watch elephants being brought to town for a circus. People perched on the rooftops of local businesses to get a better view, and on the street, women in bustled dresses and men in straw hats used umbrellas to shade themselves from the summer sun. While the circus in this photograph is unidentified, in 1883  “P.T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth,” which later became the Barnum & Bailey Circus, passed through LaPorte and South Bend on June 15 and 16. Donated by W. B. Stover