The printers — the press as a business

1868 – 1949

How it was missed: the newspapers leg owns the papers, and the job printers fell between the files — too commercial for the press history, too small for the business pass. Worked as a trade, printing is one of the town's continuous small manufactures, and it holds a surprise: for a generation, one of its houses was the Dodge company's own publishing arm.

The course: the 1868 county directory gives the trade its first Mishawaka form under the heading Printing Office: Brower N. V., opposite the town hall — N. V. Brower being also, in the same book, editor and proprietor of the Mishawaka Enterprise, the printer and the newspaper in one man, the era's usual arrangement, the paper's own history standing in the newspapers file. Howard's incorporation roll adds the trade's industrial house: the Power and Transmission Publishing Company, organized November 27, 1885, by Wallace H. Dodge, Edward A. Jernegan and Alexander L. Thorp, capital ten thousand dollars, to publish "a series of mechanical journals in the interests of manufacturers, millers, master mechanics, and all interested in the use and transmission of power" — its monthly, Rope Transmission Power, reached, in Howard's phrase, so large a circulation as to affect "very sensibly the business and standing of the post office at Mishawaka." A trade journal for the pulley trade, published from the pulley town by the pulley company: the entry prints Howard's account at his strength, the company's course past 1907 untraced. Johnson's 1902–03 directory lists Drapier Chas. B., printer, at 101 2d; the 1921 classified, under Printers — Book and Job, carries four: Drapier Charles E., at 111½ Lincoln Way E. — the name printed as each book gives it, B in 1902 and E in 1921, the two listings not merged on the initial's evidence; the Franklin Press, 111 W. Front; the Jernegan Printing Office, 113½ S. Main — a Jernegan standing in the trade in 1921 as one stood among the Power and Transmission incorporators in 1885, the relation unstated and unprinted; and the Quality Print Shop, 119 S. Main. The 1949 heading, read through a poor scan, carries five houses, of which three names read clean: the Mishawaka Printing Co., 214 N. Main; the Printers Press, at 119½ First as read; and Johnson Printing Service — with two more, a press on W. Front and a firm on Lincoln Way E., whose names the scan garbles past recovery here. Five job shops in 1949 against four in 1921 and one in 1902: the trade grew with the town's paperwork, and its roster stands at the size the books give it.

Sources:

1. Business Directory of St. Joseph County (1868), the Mishawaka list — headings Printing Office and Newspaper.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), Mishawaka chapter, "Business Enterprises" — the Power and Transmission Publishing Company of 1885 and its monthly, as quoted. Read in the ldsgenealogy transcription.
3. Johnson's Business & Professional Directory (1902–03), the Mishawaka Business Directory — "Drapier Chas B, printer, 101 2d."
4. Polk's Mishawaka City Directory (1921), classified directory, heading Printers — Book and Job; Polk (1949), Mishawaka classified, heading Printers — Book and Commercial, legible names only, from a poor scan.