The firsts, tested: one gap, and the firsts the record does hold

The first automobile in Mishawaka — not documented · the first Mishawaka-built car — 1904/1906

The first automobile in Mishawaka: No source reached for this section names the first automobile brought into Mishawaka, its owner, or its year. The gap stands open, with its settling sources named in the pass note — the Mishawaka Enterprise and the South Bend papers of 1899–1906 at full run, and the county histories' reminiscence chapters. Until one of them yields the item, the first automobile in Mishawaka is unrecorded here, and any date printed for it would be invention.

The first Mishawaka-built automobile: This first does settle, at the strength of the dating conflict carried in the Amplex entry. The first automobile manufactured in Mishawaka of record is the American Simplex: marketed from 1904 on Sieber's and ConceptCarz's accounts, in register production from 1906 on the encyclopedia tradition's dating, and built in the company's own new works from 1907–1910 on the History Museum's. No earlier Mishawaka-built vehicle claim was found in any source reached, and no rival claim exists in the record to test against it. The first Mishawaka-built cars in national competition are likewise documented: the two American Simplex entries in the first Indianapolis 500 of 1911, carried in their own entry above. And the close of the maker era has its own documentary marker: the trade's first full directory census of the city, in 1921, finds exactly two automobile sellers and no maker — the brass-era industry this section records was already a memory when the directories began counting the trade.

Sources:

1. The sources of the entries above, read as stated there — the negative on the first automobile in Mishawaka is the product of the same reading, and the search is described in the entry itself.
2. The Dealerships section of this history — the 1921 directory census of the city's automobile trade: two sellers, no maker.