The Names as the Folk Tell Them

Undated, as sayings are · the etymologies that circulate

The city's name: the folk etymology of Mishawaka is the princess herself — “our city was named in her honor,” in the tablet's words — and it is the version a resident is most likely to meet first, because it is the version cast in bronze at the park and stated without qualification on the county's genealogy page. The documented readings stand in the Story of Mishawaka section, three of them, unreconciled there as here: the Potawatomi place-word carried as M'Shehwahkeek, “swift flowing water” or “heavy timbered rapids”; Howard's “Big Rapids” of 1907; and the modern linguistic reading, mšwakig, “at the firewood-tree land.” The folk version needs no linguistics and offers a person instead of a word, which is why it wins in circulation; the record prints it here as the folk version, with its carriers named, beside the Story of Mishawaka section's three readings, and chooses neither in this section — the choosing, on the documents, was the Story of Mishawaka section's, and its answer is that the name is older than the tale.

The Heights: the one neighborhood name in the city that sounds like a folk coinage is one: Hooligan Heights, in the southwest peninsula, was “dubbed for the district's rough-and-tumble reputation” in the 1920s, in the neighborhoods record's words — a nickname applied from outside, for conduct, and kept. No person named Hooligan and no single founding brawl stands in the record reached, and the folk temptation to supply either — a family, a fight, a saloon — is exactly that: the neighborhoods entry names the gap and its settling sources, and this section points to it rather than filling it. Mayor Joseph Canfield, testifying for the district's renewal in 1961, called it “aptly dubbed” — the name by then was evidence in a federal hearing, a folk word doing official work.

The short forms and the second coinage: the city's standing short name in modern listings is “The Mish” — carried as a nickname beside “The Princess City” in the standard encyclopedia infobox, a clipping with no story attached and none needed. The city's other great folk coinage is documented whole in Culture and pointed to here because its mechanism is this section's subject stated in one act: at a football game at Cartier Field in 1922 or 1923, a fan named Curt Johnson held up a sign — “OUR TEAM WILL FIGHT LIKE CAVEMEN!” — Mishawaka won, and the name stuck for a century. A princess from a storybook and a caveman from a placard: the city's two durable identities were both folk inventions, adopted by acclamation because they fit, and the record shows the city never once mistook the second one for history.

Sources:

1. This history, spine section — the three documented readings of the name (De Kever's M'Shehwahkeek; Howard, 1907, “Big Rapids”; the modern linguistic reading mšwakig), printed there unreconciled; the Princess Mishawaka monument tablet (1932) — “Our city was named in her honor.”
2. This history, neighborhoods section, Hooligan Heights entry — the 1920s dubbing for the district's rough-and-tumble reputation; no person or event etymology in the record reached; Mayor Joseph Canfield's 1961 testimony (“aptly dubbed”).
3. “Mishawaka, Indiana,” encyclopedia article, infobox — nicknames: “The Princess City, The Mish.”
4. This history, Culture section — Curt Johnson's sign at Cartier Field, 1922 or 1923, and the adoption of the Cavemen name (per Robert D. Smith's account in the School City of Mishawaka newsletter, October 2015).