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1836–1917 · Polk rosters; Chapman; Howard; Lakeville marker record (IHB 71.2019.1)
The tavern frame stands in the Story of Lakeville section (Earl's, 1836, the Michigan Road rest-station origin) and is not re-told here. The named hotel line the directories give runs one keeper per edition: Rudy Shirk, hotel, in 1880–81 (and in that edition's classified Hotels list, "Shirk R, Lakeville") — the first named keeper of a Lakeville hotel in any carrier read; Henry Cordary in 1882–83, Shirk gone from the entry — his surname travels in further forms across the wider record (Cordray in Chapman's farm sketches), printed as a register item with all forms standing; then George Deed, "hotel and livery," in 1884–85, the house and the stable under one keeper. By 1916–17 no hotel is listed at all. The line is a succession of keepers, printed at directory strength; no carrier reached gives the houses' names, rooms, or rates, and none are supplied.
The Forrest Hotel is the town's best-attested building with an unattested keeper. The house stands in the record — in the marker programme's Lakeville file (IHB 71.2019.1) and in the town's own memory as its landmark hotel — under a spelling that itself varies (Forrest/Forest, registered whole). But in every carrier — the three Polk rosters, both county histories, the Atlas, the marker file — no proprietor's name ever attaches to the Forrest Hotel. The keepers the rosters name (Shirk, Cordary, Deed) attach to "hotel" as a trade, never to this house by name. The gap is printed as it stands: the house is real, its keeper is not in the record reached. Settler: the Lakeville Standard run; the marker file's underlying research at the Indiana Historical Bureau.
The modern test is negative: no hotel, motel, or inn operates in Lakeville in the carriers of November 2026, and none is listed for the town in the lodging directories reached. The Michigan Road's rest-station town ends its hotel line in the directory age.