The stations: every house's course

1904–2024 · CENTRAL, NORTH SIDE, SOUTH SIDE, EAST SIDE, AND THE EMS HOUSE

Central, 1904: The paid department began in the combined city hall, police and fire building at First and Church Streets, opened October 1904 — the Central Fire Station, sixteen men and two horse-drawn engines under Chief Williard. By the 1921 directory the Central Station stands at 112 North Church Street, a block north of the City Hall address the same directory prints — the complex's own two frontages, printed as the record gives them — under Chief Charles R. Shelton, with G. Edwin Christian as assistant chief and William Roggeman as captain. In 1952 Central was remodeled behind a new modern façade with three engine bay doors. The department's headquarters house is today Station 1 at 600 Union Street, on the south side; the enthusiast-maintained Firefighting Wiki dates that house's opening to 1988, and the Central-to-Union move is documented in the record reached at that strength only — the city's own paper for the move stands as a named gap.

No. 2, the North Side, 1911: The second paid-era house was built in 1911 on the north side: a horse-drawn engine was moved up from Central to open it, and replaced the same year by the city's first motorized fire truck, a 1911 American LaFrance — the department's horse era and motor era meet in that one house in a single year. By 1921 No. 2 stands at 1102 North Main Street under Captain O. M. Goeller. In October 1963 the city dedicated its replacement, a new North Side station on North Main Street in Normain Heights, the subdivision annexed in 1947 — a residential-style building, replaced and relocated on the same street. That 1963 house, at 2332 North Main, served until 2024, when the new Station 2 opened in October 2024 at 700 East McKinley Avenue: 23,000 square feet, five apparatus bays, built around firefighter safety and wellness, with a ribbon cutting and open house on 15 October 2024.

No. 3, the South Side, 1922: Hose House No. 3 was built in 1922 at South Main and 8th Streets. In 1959 the South Side station was replaced and relocated to a large Moderne building at West 9th and Wells Streets. The south side's house today is Station 3 at 333 East Douglas Road — the Firefighting Wiki dates its opening to 1990, printed at that strength — and the Douglas Road house is one of the three stations to which the ambulance service spread in 2013–14, in the EMS entry below.

No. 4, the East Side, 1929: Station No. 4, at 2319 Lincolnway East, was built in 1929 to the designs of Freyermuth & Maurer of South Bend, in Tudor Revival/English Cottage style — a fire station built to look like a house among houses, the residential model of its decade; its entry foyer doubled as a waiting station for the Lincolnway interurban line, Transit's fact, and Fire Chief Marshall Potts held the department, 1926 to 1930, while it rose. The old No. 4 was decommissioned in 2013 and replaced by the new Station 4 at 3000 East Harrison Road — the department's present headquarters address — and the 1929 house survives as a private residence, keeping its character: the fire-pole opening, the arched apparatus bay, the terrazzo and glazed brick of the nomination's record.

The EMS house, 2002–2015: The ambulance service had a house of its own in the years before the ambulances spread to the fire stations: the EMS station at 333 East Mishawaka Avenue, in service 2002 to 2015 in the enthusiast station record, afterward the Mishawaka Health & Wellness Center. It is the "one station, on Mishawaka Avenue" from which the Tribune's 2012 account says the ambulance crews had been based — the two records agree, and are printed together at their joint strength.

Sources:

1. National Park Service, National Register registration form, Mishawaka Fire Station No. 4, Section 8 — Central in the 1904 combined building; No. 2 built 1911, the horse-drawn engine moved from Central and replaced the same year by the 1911 American LaFrance, the city's first motorized truck; Hose House No. 3 built 1922 at South Main and 8th; No. 4 built 1929, Freyermuth & Maurer, Tudor Revival/English Cottage, Marshall Potts chief 1926–1930; Central remodeled 1952; the South Side station replaced and relocated 1959 to West 9th and Wells; the North Side station replaced and relocated 1963 to North Main; No. 4 decommissioned and replaced 2013, the old house now a residence.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), as carried in the Government fragment — Central No. 1 at 112 N. Church under Chief Shelton; No. 2 at 1102 N. Main under Captain Goeller.
3. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History, as carried in the Government fragment — the North Side Fire Station dedicated in October 1963 on North Main Street in Normain Heights.
4. City of Mishawaka news (5 November 2024) — the new Station 2 at 700 E. McKinley Ave, 23,000 square feet, five apparatus bays, ribbon cutting and open house 15 October 2024, replacing 2332 N. Main (in service 1963–2024).
5. Firefighting Wiki, Mishawaka Fire Department station and apparatus record (enthusiast-maintained, read November 2026) — Station 1 at 600 Union St opened 1988; Station 3 at 333 E. Douglas Rd opened 1990; the former EMS station at 333 E. Mishawaka Ave, 2002–2015, afterward the Mishawaka Health & Wellness Center. Printed at enthusiast-record strength.