SOUTH BEND — It can be hard to say goodbye, but exciting to say hello. This weekend WSBT will do both. But before we move to our new home in Mishawaka, we wanted to remember some of our most favorite memories at 300 West Jefferson.

For 52 years 300 West Jefferson, in the heart downtown South Bend, was home for WSBT. It officially opened in 1956.

"There were lines around the block to tour it and it was really a showplace for South Bend and Mishawaka," said WSBT-TV President and General Manager John Mann.

Broadcast Center, as it was called, was built by the same firm that designed CBS Television Studios in Hollywood — it was truly state of the art.

"We were the first ones to have — even before I got there — color cameras," said former sports anchor Bob Lux.

Through the years, tens of thousands of broadcasts have beamed from our building into your living rooms across the area.

There are the newscasts, which have changed faces, colors, and so many hairstyles over the years.

"With the long sideburns, the long hair over your ears like that, and I wore a leisure suit once in a while, too!" added Lux.

There were other shows, too. Popeye Theater, Homemaker's Time and the wildly popular Hoosier Favorites.

"It was sort of a spin-off of Dick Clark's American Bandstand show," Lux explained. "When a celebrity came into town, they'd have them on. But they did a lot of pantomiming — they'd play a hit song and the people that are hosting the show, they'd pantomime those songs."

WSBT is more than television. It's also radio. For the last five decades, 960 AM and Sunny 101.5 have also called 300 West Jefferson home.

"A lot of changes, lot of changes," said John Thompson, known to radio listeners as JT. He’s been here since the '70s.

"I have a couple items I’d like to show you," Thompson said. "This is a ... we call it a cart. It’s a cartridge which is now defunct. We don’t use those anymore. This is known as a DAT tape — digital audio tape — and that’s history. And of course we have the ever-present loose reel to reel tape. I have scars from where we used razor blades to edit this stuff!"

Over the years as the WSBT family grew along with the number of programs it produces, and all this new technology, space has gotten tight.

As we begin the move to our new broadcast facility in high definition, the change is bittersweet.

"A lot of memories here of people who are not only no longer here, but no longer with us," said Thompson.

Like veteran news anchor, reporter, and news director Roland Kelley — who interviewed President Lyndon Johnson on live TV after the Palm Sunday tornadoes.

"Joe Kelly and Bruce Saunders — there were just a ton of folks," recalled Frank Schurz, Jr., chairman of Schurz Communications Inc. "The memories of the people in this building is what I’ll take back."

We're taking all those memories to Mishawaka to make decades more in the next chapter of the WSBT story ... and we all hope you'll join us.