The signature product, boundary-tested: Ball Band, in knit, felt, canvas, leather and rubber — and Granger's share of it

1838–1997 · MISHAWAKA (BOUNDARY), TESTED AGAINST CLAY AND HARRIS

The signature cloth product of this county is Mishawaka's, and the audit asks for it in all its materials with the makers named, tested for any Granger plant, workforce or product share. The makers: a woolen mill stood in Mishawaka from about 1838; Jacob Beiger and his son Martin V. Beiger bought it in 1867, and in 1874 it was incorporated as the Mishawaka Woolen Manufacturing Company. In 1886 Martin V. Beiger and Adolphus Eberhart invented the all-knit boot — a woolen boot that held its shape without shrinking or stretching — and felt boots were added about 1889–1895. The knit boot carried a black band dyed on its top edge; a red ball was added to the band after felt-boot makers copied the marking; the Red Ball was in use from 1891 and the Ball-Band name and mark were registered in 1901. In 1897 the company decided to manufacture rubber footwear: the first crude rubber was washed on Christmas Day 1897 and the first ticket of shoes was made on February 23, 1898. The line as the company's own history prints it ran, in its materials, woolen, felt, canvas, leather and rubber — boots, overshoes, arctics and later the Red Ball Jets tennis shoes — from a plant of more than forty acres of floor space employing approximately 5,000 wage and salary personnel at the half-century mark the history was written, and nearly 10,000 workers during the Second World War. The company passed to the United States Rubber Company and then Uniroyal; footwear was discontinued in 1969 and the doors closed for good in 1997. The Granger test: no Ball Band plant, warehouse, company store or product line seated in Clay or Harris township appears in any source reached — not in the company's own history, which seats the whole manufacture in Mishawaka; not in the county histories; not in the banked Businesses leg, whose firm roster for this ground contains no cloth manufacturer of any kind. Granger's share of the signature product is therefore stated plainly: plant share, none; product share, none that the record names. That share is carried as a named want inside this article, settler: the 1940 census township occupation tabulations and any surviving Uniroyal employment record, neither open.

Sources:

1. “The History of Ball Band,” company history as preserved by Michiana Memory, St. Joseph County Public Library (the 1838 mill, 1867 Beiger purchase, 1874 incorporation, 1886 all-knit boot, Red Ball 1891/1901, rubber from Christmas Day 1897 and February 23, 1898, the materials list and the 5,000-personnel figure), consulted November 2026.
2. Ball-Band Factory historical marker, Mishawaka (Historical Marker Database, marker record): Perkins Windmill, Mishawaka Woolen, U.S. Rubber and Uniroyal succession; nearly 10,000 workers in the Second World War; footwear discontinued 1969; closed 1997.
3. Mishawaka Rubber & Woolen Mfg. Co. v. S. S. Kresge Co., 119 F.2d 316 (6th Cir. 1941): the Red Ball heel mark in continuous use since 1898, registered 1901, goods lettered “Mishawaka, Indiana.”
4. This build's Businesses leg (banked): the Granger firm roster, searched for any cloth manufacturer — none.