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January 1905 — 1908
The act: In January 1905, in the government record's phrase, the new city's first great act of government was to enlarge itself: 1,353 acres west of Logan Street and south of the railroad tracks — the neighborhood later called Hooligan Heights, and ground that would afterwards hold Merrifield Park, Mishawaka High School, Fairview Cemetery and parts of the West End. For the first time the city's western border touched South Bend's eastern boundary.
The fight: The annexed farmers and property owners fought the taking to the Indiana Supreme Court — a jurisdictional war over whether whole farms and homesteads would become city ground, with city taxes and city services to match. The fight took three years. The annexation's boundaries were nonetheless confirmed by 1908, on the research of historian Susanna Ernst as the city's commissioned history carries it, and the modern city's west side stands on the result: every institution named above sits in the taken territory.
The open part: The case's name and citation are not given in the sources read — the gap is the government record's, carried openly there and here, and it matters because the decision is the legal foundation of the modern city's west side. The settling sources are the Indiana Reports of 1905–08 and the Mishawaka City Council Records, 1845–1977, at the Hesburgh Libraries.
Sources:
- Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the Great Annexation of January 1905 (1,353 acres; the Supreme Court fight; boundaries confirmed by 1908; on Susanna Ernst's research), as carried in the government record, Government.
- ArchivesSpace, Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame — the Mishawaka City Council Records (identifier ISH), 1845–1977, named as a settling source.