The clothiers' courses: who sold dress, era by era, and what replaced them

1883–2026 · SOUTH BEND AND MISHAWAKA (BOUNDARY), THEN THE GRANGER CORRIDOR

Run as successions across dated snapshots, the county's dress trade has four eras, and Granger enters only the last of them — which is itself the finding. First era, the custom-and-dry-goods town: the 1883 South Bend directory carries dressmakers and tailors by name in its alphabetical list and a millinery and dress-goods house advertising silks, dress goods, caps and millinery received direct from manufacturers. Second era, the factory-and-department-store town: Wilson Brothers, founded in Cincinnati in 1864 by the four Wilson brothers, began manufacturing in South Bend in 1883 on the second floor of the post office building on South Michigan Street, bought land from J. D. Oliver in 1887 and grew a factory of 12½ acres of floor space making shirts, underwear, pajamas and neckties — 72,000 shirts in an 8½-hour day at its machine strength, 2,200 people employed by 1929, most of them women, sewing being traditionally viewed as women's work and paid as such. Beside it stood the South Bend Woolen Company (founded 1869, sixty broad looms, some 500,000 yards of cloth a year at its strength, suiting and overcoating sold to House of Kuppenheimer and Hart, Schaffner and Marx) and the A. C. Staley works (from 1855; reorganized 1907 as the Stephenson Underwear Mills, making blankets, men's sweaters and woolen underwear). The retail face of the era was Robertson's: Robertson Brothers opened in 1904, the seven-story flagship at 211 South Michigan Street in 1925, floors dedicated to women's fashion and men's fashion, taken in 1932 by brothers Sig and Will Welber. Third era, decline and replacement: Wilson bought the Enro Shirt Company in 1949, Enro's Kentucky plant took the bulk of shirt production, South Bend continued only in pajamas and bathrobes until the plant was no longer needed in 1975; Robertson's, in severe financial trouble through the Studebaker collapse and downtown decay, closed in 1986, its building later redeveloped as senior apartments. What replaced them in the county was the mall and then the corridor — and the corridor is where Granger's own course finally begins, inside living memory: the banked Businesses leg carries the nodes (Granger Station, Heritage Square, Toscana Park, GrandView) from the 1980s forward, and the dress trade arrives in them as boutiques and chain apparel, carried at its present strength in this section's closing article. The succession is printed at county strength because that is where the trade lived; the Granger line inside it is a documented late arrival, not an absence of looking.

Sources:

1. Discover Indiana (Indiana Historical Society / IUPUI), “Wilson Brothers Shirt Factory” (1864 founding, 1883 South Bend start, 1887 Oliver land purchase, 12½ acres, products, 72,000 shirts a day, 2,200 employed by 1929, Enro 1949, pajamas and bathrobes to 1975), consulted November 2026.
2. South Bend Woolen Company and Stephenson Underwear Mills records as compiled from the Northern Indiana Center for History (Monon / South Bend railroad-history collection): 1869 founding, sixty looms, 500,000 yards; Staley 1855, Stephenson reorganization 1907, products as printed.
3. Indiana University South Bend, Civil Rights Heritage Center landmark tour, and Michiana Jewish Historical Society, “Robertson's Department Store” (1904 opening, 1925 flagship at 211 S. Michigan, 1932 Welber purchase, fashion floors, 1986 closing, senior-housing redevelopment), consulted November 2026.
4. Polk directories 1883 and 1921, as in the preceding article; this build's Businesses leg for the corridor nodes.