The Mercury point: Dillon-Fry, Paul Dillon, and Nye-Fulton at 201 South Main

1949 — 1963 · Lincoln Way West, then 201 South Main

The Dillon course: The Dillon name enters the Mishawaka record in the 1949 canvass as Dillon-Fry Motors Inc, selling from Lincoln Way West with a service-led advertisement and a second store at 520 South Main in South Bend. By 1956 the firm has taken the form the decade knows: Dillon Paul Motors Inc, Mercury, at 2102 Lincoln Way West — the address Miller & Anderson had held in 1949 — with Paul J. Dillon as president and treasurer. The Mercury point was Dillon's, on the west Lincoln Way row, in the middle canvass.

Nye-Fulton: By 1963 the Lincoln-Mercury point stands downtown, at 201 South Main, under a two-city firm: Nye-Fulton Motor Co Inc. The directory's two statements of the firm do not quite agree, and both are printed. Its South Bend alphabetical entry gives James H. Fulton as president and David A. Nye as vice-president, the new-car store at 920 East Wayne in South Bend, and 201 South Main, Mishawaka, as the firm's used-car department, telephone BLackburn 9-4553; its Mishawaka pages name a Bernadette A. Fulton as the company's president, living at 719 North Main. Against both stands the firm's own display advertising, which ran at the head of page after page of the 1963 volume: "Lincoln Continental — Mercury Monterey — Mercury Meteor — Mercury Comet, Sales and Service, 201 S. Main, Mishawaka," on the same BLackburn 9-4553 number. What is settled is the ground and the line: in 1963 a Mishawaka buyer could buy a Lincoln or a Mercury at 201 South Main, from a firm whose officers the record names two ways. Which Dillon transaction, if any, carried the Mercury franchise from 2102 Lincoln Way West to the Nye-Fulton house is not documented in the sources read; the 1957–62 canvasses are the settling source, and the succession is printed at directory strength only.

Sources:

1. Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka directories, 1949, 1956 and 1963 (read first-hand) — the Dillon-Fry Motors Inc listings and Buyers' Guide advertisement of 1949; the Dillon Paul Motors Inc entry of 1956 (Mercury, 2102 Lincoln Way W., Paul J. Dillon, president-treasurer); the Nye-Fulton Motor Co Inc entries of 1963 in both cities' sections, with the officer conflict and the used-car-department statement printed above, and the firm's running-head display advertising (Lincoln Continental, Mercury Monterey, Mercury Meteor, Mercury Comet; sales and service, 201 S. Main, Mishawaka).