The 1949 field: eight sellers in the first postwar canvass

1949 · Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka directory, Mishawaka classified section

The census: The 1949 canvass is the first that shows Mishawaka's trade at full postwar size, and its classified section lists eight automobile sellers. Two of them — Gates's Chevrolet store and the store at 609 East Jefferson that would become Jordan's — are large enough to have entries of their own in this section. The rest stand here at the size the canvass carries them, which for most is one classified line and a name in the alphabetical list; in a sellers' market where every dealer in America had a waiting list, even one line is a franchise point on the map.

The houses: Dillon-Fry Motors Inc sold from Lincoln Way West — its Buyers' Guide advertisement gives the telephone, 5-2115, and sells the service department as hard as the cars: "Complete Mechanical Body Service" — with a second store across the river at 520 South Main in South Bend; the Mishawaka classified line assigns it no make, and none is printed here. Gilman & Drover Inc held Oldsmobile, at 115 East 3rd in the classified list and 115 East 2nd in a second listing in the same volume — the conflict stands as the book prints it. Grady Motor Co Inc stood at 115 West 4th, with Martin L. Yeager as vice-president and manager; the Buick franchise it carries in 1956 is not stated in the 1949 line. City Auto Sales, at 1609 Lincoln Way East under Charles W. Hamann, sold used cars only — the field's one dedicated used-car house. Miller & Anderson, the firm of D. L. Miller and D. C. Anderson at 2102 Lincoln Way West, held Chrysler and Plymouth cars and Reo trucks; its course stands in the Miller entry below. And Stewart's Garage, at 2720 Lincoln Way West under H. L. Stewart, telephone 5-2177, was a garage with a franchise of the newest kind: Kaiser-Frazer Sales and Service, one of the two makes built by the corporation Henry J. Kaiser and Joseph Frazer had formed in 1945 — the war's shipbuilder selling cars from a garage at the west end of Lincoln Way within four years of the peace.

Sources:

1. Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka directory, 1949 (read first-hand) — the Mishawaka classified automobile listings whole: City Auto Sales; Dillon-Fry Motors Inc and its Buyers' Guide advertisement; Gates L. O. Chevrolet Inc; Gilman & Drover Inc at both its printed addresses; Grady Motor Co Inc; the Medow corporation at 609 E. Jefferson Blvd.; Miller & Anderson (Chrysler and Plymouth cars, Reo trucks); Stewart's Garage (Kaiser-Frazer Sales and Service); and the Dillon-Fry South Bend store at 520 S. Main given in the same volume.