The saloon era: the gazetteers' rosters, 1880–1885, and the peak that does not survive

1880 — 1918

The roster of 1880-81: Polk's Indiana State Gazetteer for 1880-81 describes a manufacturing village of 2,640 inhabitants with "one bank, one hotel and one weekly newspaper," and its Mishawaka business list names the drinking trade whole. Six men are listed with the single word saloon: Charles Auer, George Dowdell, Francis Ganser, Andre Scherman, Henry Tascher and James L. Tharp; one more stands under liquors, a dealer whose name the digitized text garbles; the Milburn House is the hotel; and the brewery is entered as "Cam & Schillinger" — Kamm & Schellinger, whose brewing course is the Businesses section's and stands there whole. Six saloons for 2,640 people is the era's documented floor, printed from the directory itself.

The roster of 1884-85: Four years on, the gazetteer's town has 3,500 inhabitants, ten churches, "an opera house, 1 hotel and 1 bank" — its headnote still counts one hotel while its own list names two houses, the Milburn House (Work) and the Union House, kept by Mrs. Cresencia Auer. The saloon list has grown to seven: John G. Doutel, E. W. Fink, Francis H. Ganser, Ahman Miller, Anton Scherman, Peter Tollens and Joseph Wachs. Two keepers stand in both editions — Ganser in both (Francis in 1880, Francis H. in 1884), and a Scherman in both (Andre in 1880, Anton in 1884) — printed as each edition prints them, not reconciled into one man. The Auer name stands on both sides of the trade across the two editions — Charles Auer's saloon in 1880, Mrs. Cresencia Auer's hotel in 1884; the directories do not state their relation, and none is claimed. One more keeper enters from the biographical record: Howard's 1907 county history, in a Mishawaka family's sketch, names August Mahank as "engaged in the saloon business in Mishawaka" — a working saloon keeper of the gazetteers' generation, carried at the biography's one line.

The tied trade, at pointer size: What the saloons poured was, increasingly, the local brewery's beer and the national brands' — the tied-house frame the South Bend record documents for the county — but Mishawaka's own brewery is an industry story, told in Businesses: Kamm & Schellinger, from Wagner's 1853 plant to the Pilsner years and the 30,000-barrel output of the period account. It is pointed to here and not retold; what belongs to this section is only that the seven saloons of 1884 stood four miles from the county seat in a brewery town, and drank accordingly.

The peak that does not survive: Between the 1884 gazetteer and April 1918, when Indiana's own dry law closed every legal saloon in the state, Mishawaka grew from 3,500 to some 14,000 people and its saloon roster grew with it — but no directory of those years has been digitized into the reachable record, and no count is invented here. The Controversies section has already printed the companion negative: no saloon-license controversy, Sunday-closing fight or dance-hall ordinance fight for Mishawaka stands in the record reached; the city's saloons and its brewery were regulated from Indianapolis and Washington. The settling records are named so the gap is a work order: the Mishawaka city directories in the public library's run (the library holds the city's directories; the 1903 South Bend & Mishawaka directory survives at the Notre Dame Archives), the county license dockets, and the Mishawaka Enterprise's full run. Whether Mishawaka or its county ever voted on drink under the county-option law of 1908 or the Proctor law of 1911 is likewise not in the record reached — the same open question the South Bend leg carries, with the same settling sources.

Sources:

1. R. L. Polk & Co., Indiana State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1880-81, vol. I — the Mishawaka listing read first-hand: population 2,640; Charles Auer, George Dowdell, Francis Ganser, Andre Scherman, Henry Tascher and James L. Tharp, each "saloon"; one dealer under "liquors" (name garbled in the digitized text); the Milburn House, H. A. Work proprietor; "Cam & Schillinger, brewery."
2. R. L. Polk & Co., Indiana State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1884-85, vol. III — the Mishawaka listing read first-hand (p. 503): population 3,500; John G. Doutel, E. W. Fink, Francis H. Ganser, Ahman Miller, Anton Scherman, Peter Tollens and Joseph Wachs, each "saloon"; the Milburn House (H. A. Work) and the Union House (Mrs. Cresencia Auer); Kamm & Schellinger, brewers; the headnote's "1 hotel" against the list's two houses, printed as found.
3. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), biographical volume — August Mahank "engaged in the saloon business in Mishawaka," in the Lang family sketch. Controversies section of this history — the dry-law negative (no local license fight in the record reached) and its named settling sources; Businesses section — the brewery's course and output.