The Carnegie Library as a building: the Jacobethan exception

1915–PRESENT · 122 NORTH HILL STREET

The exception: Mishawaka's Carnegie library was built against the type. Its nomination's significance statement says it plainly: "Unlike many other Carnegie libraries in Indiana, Mishawaka's library does not feature the traditional 'Carnegie Classical' architecture style or the typical raised basement feature. The Flemish gable end walls and entrance are particularly noteworthy." The style is Jacobethan Revival: one story, its entrance at grade, oriental brick with ivory terra cotta trimmings under a slate roof; the press of its opening week called it "of old English type of architecture… with Queen Anne windows." Above the entrance a terra cotta plaque carries the building's whole philosophy in a sentence: "An Idle Book Never Loses in Power. An Idle Man Does." Its architect was A. F. Wickes of Gary, chosen by May 1915 — the nomination states plainly that his history and previous commissions are unknown, as is the reason an out-of-town architect was chosen, and this chapter prints the unknown with the building. The contract went at $19,900 to the lowest bidder, a Gary contractor; construction ran from mid-September 1915, and the building opened on 5 May 1916, the 147th of Indiana's 164 Carnegie libraries. In 1937–38 the Works Progress Administration rebuilt and enlarged it, the addition the libraries record carries whole. The city's 1995 Historic Sites and Structures Inventory rated the building Outstanding, and the Register listed it on 14 August 1998.

The building's second life: The library moved out in 1969, and the building's course since is a preservation case study in itself, carried whole in the libraries record and stated here at the size the fabric requires: the building passed from the city to the Beiger Heritage Corporation under two protective easements; was sold in February 1976 to George Kilbey, who proposed an aircraft museum in it that never occurred; descended to Mark Kilbey; was the subject of a 1995 attempted sale to Carnegie Properties, Inc., over which Beiger Heritage sued on its right of first refusal — and in June 1996 the Indiana Court of Appeals awarded Beiger Heritage the right to purchase. In 1997 it stood for sale, vacant for long stretches, its roof leaking and minor vandalism done, yet, the nomination records, "nearly all of the primary features and materials intact," its front desk reportedly stored in its own basement and its 1937 bicycle racks still in place outside. In 2018 it opened as a restaurant — Jesus Latin Grill and Tequila Bar, in the name it opened under; the house is named "Jesus Cantina" in a 2025 News-Times feature, and both name forms stand in the libraries record. The Jacobethan exception outlasted its purpose: a library that refused the Carnegie Classical manner now pours tequila under its Flemish gables, its terra cotta sentence still over the door.

Sources:

1. National Register nomination, Mishawaka Carnegie Library (1997), prepared by Adrian Scott Fine, read first-hand in the libraries pass and carried here at building size — the Jacobethan design and its stated exception to the Carnegie type, Wickes and the unknowns around him, the $19,900 contract, the May 1916 opening, the plaque, the post-1969 course, the easements, the 1996 Court of Appeals ruling and the 1997 condition report.
2. The libraries record of this history — the institution whole: the grant's paper course, the WPA enlargement of 1937–38, the 1969 move, and the restaurant's two name forms.
3. National Register Information System — listing 14 August 1998, #98001048, the same day as the Reservoir Caretaker's Residence.