The second tier: the used-car trade and the small names

1949 — 1963 · the lots between the franchise houses

The trade: Beneath the franchise houses the canvasses carry a second tier of the business — the used-car lots — and it has its own continuities. City Auto Sales, Charles W. Hamann's used-only house at 1609 Lincoln Way East in 1949, stands at 224 South Main in 1956, back downtown: a seven-year course for a one-line listing. The 1956 classified list names the tier around it: G & R Motor Sales; Hamann's lot under his own name; Jordan Used Car Inc at 1219 North Cedar — the Jordan house keeping a separate used-car corporation across town from its Jefferson Boulevard store; Kambol's Don Motor Sales; and a lot under the name Relicke. The 1963 canvass adds a firm the trade named for the city itself: Mishawaka Motor Co, whose members the alphabetical list gives as Russell L. and Jack L.

Why the tier is printed: The used-car trade is where most Mishawaka families most of the time actually bought cars, and it is the tier the standard dealer histories leave out because it left no letterheads. The directories are its only record: a handful of names, addresses and telephone numbers, printed here whole because whole is what survives.

Sources:

1. Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka directories, 1949, 1956 and 1963 (read first-hand) — the City Auto Sales listings of 1949 (used cars only, 1609 Lincoln Way E., Charles W. Hamann) and 1956 (224 S. Main); the used-car names of the 1956 Mishawaka classified list (G & R Motor Sales; Hamann; Jordan Used Car Inc, 1219 N. Cedar; Kambol's Don Motor Sales; Relicke); the Mishawaka Motor Co members named in the 1963 alphabetical list.