The defense decades: missile cases and the last fuel cells

1959 – 1990s

The war flow's long tail: The rubber works' outward line did not end in 1945, and the marker on its ground itemizes the second career at the same grain as the first — by the weapons that carried the product. From 1959 the plant made missile components: case insulation and filament-wound motor cases for the Minuteman intercontinental missile and the Navy's Polaris submarine missile, with over six million dollars of tooling in continuous use on three shifts — products whose destinations were the silo fields of the northern plains and the submarine fleet, printed here at that documented strength. Ensolite, made from the 1950s, went into Korean War military boots, jackets and pants. And the fuel-cell craft that began with Doolittle's tanks ran the length of the plant's life: the marker records fuel cells for the F/A-18 Hornet and the B-52 in the later years, and Tomahawk cruise-missile fuel containers in production into the 1990s — the last documented defense line of the works, closing with the plant in 1997, fifty-six years after the first cells were fabricated. The AM General line that succeeded it as the city's defense exporter is the next entry's, at pointer; between them, the two works on the same river shipped Mishawaka rubber and Mishawaka trucks into every American war from 1941 forward, and the record of where those products served is the services' record, not the city's — this section prints the products and their carriers, and claims no finer destination than the record names.

Sources:

1. Ball-Band Factory marker, as carried in this build's Ball Band file — missile components from 1959 (Minuteman and Polaris case insulation and filament-wound motor cases; over $6 million of tooling on three shifts); Ensolite in Korean War boots, jackets and pants; fuel cells for the F/A-18 and B-52; Tomahawk fuel containers into the 1990s; the plant's closing in 1997.