The agents of record, at directory size

MISHAWAKA, 1916–1921 · THE DIRECTORY ROLL

The agency on Main Street: the state's own business directory, R. L. Polk & Co.'s Indiana Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1916–1917, enters the trade in its Mishawaka list in one line — "Schindler A J & J W, ins, 215 S Main" — a two-partner insurance agency at 215 South Main Street, in the same entry that carries John W. Schindler's law practice at the same address. The agency and the law office under one roof was the period's normal shape for the trade: insurance written by a local man of standing, whose name was the company's local face.

The bank as agent: Polk's 1921 South Bend and Mishawaka directory carries the Mishawaka Trust & Savings Company — at 104 Lincoln Way West, telephones Mishawaka 2278–2279 — advertising in its display pages, alongside its general banking, "INSURANCE OF ALL KINDS," at four per cent interest on savings. Fire cover in Mishawaka was thus sold across the bank counter as well as the agency desk: the institution sat inside the city's two kinds of trusted storefront.

The size of the roll, stated honestly: the directories recovered for this build yield the agency and the bank above at Mishawaka addresses; a fuller classified roll — every agent the classified sections of Polk 1921, 1949, 1956 and 1963 carried under Insurance for Mishawaka — was not extracted in the build's working texts available and is printed as a named gap, settling source the directories themselves (the Indiana State Library's St. Joseph County directory holdings carry the runs). What is entered here is the trade at the size the read record gives it: one named agency, one bank-agent, and the mutual behind the township risk.

Pointer: the Sanborn fire insurance maps — drawn for underwriters, and the reason this city's buildings were surveyed lot by lot — stand in Historic Maps, where their insurance purpose is stated whole. They are not re-entered here.

Sources:

1. R. L. Polk & Co., Indiana Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1916–1917, Mishawaka entry ("Schindler A J & J W, ins 215 S Main"; "Schindler John W, lawyer 215 S Main"), via Internet Archive text.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend and Mishawaka City Directory, 1921, display advertising (Mishawaka Trust & Savings Co., "INSURANCE OF ALL KINDS").
3. Indiana State Library, St. Joseph County directory holdings list (secure.in.gov/library) — named as settler for the full classified roll.
4. Historic Maps, this build (Sanborn maps and their insurance purpose) — pointer.