Melvin W. Mix — the shipping clerk who took the works

born 16 November 1865 at Atlanta, Illinois · died 11 December 1927 at Chicago · president of Dodge from the 1890s

Not a founder: Melvin W. Mix founded nothing at Dodge; he is in this section because no chief executive who merely ran a Mishawaka house ever ran one longer or wider. He had charge of the company's exhibit at the New Orleans Exhibition in 1885, joined Dodge as a shipping clerk in January 1886, was given charge of the Chicago sales branch in 1890, and returned to Mishawaka as director of sales. By 1910 the Dodge plant covered sixty acres with twenty-five acres of floor space and was Mishawaka's largest employer, providing employment to more than 1,200 persons — the scale his selling machine built.

The succession, carried as the record gives it: The Businesses section states that Mix "was elected president on Wallace Dodge's death" in September 1894. Howard's 1907 biography of Mix, read first-hand for this section, gives the finer sequence: on the founder's death Mix was appointed, with William W. Dodge, one of the executors of the estate, and vice-president for the year, "while in 1895 he was elected president" — with W. B. Hosford then vice-president and Charles Endlich secretary and treasurer. The two statements are printed together rather than averaged: the interim year is Howard's own, and the presidency is dated 1895 on his biography, 1894 on the summary the Businesses section carries. Under Mix, Howard records, the business had more than doubled in a decade.

The president's other houses, and his civic course: Mix ran more of Mishawaka than Dodge. His biographical record lists the companies he controlled besides the power-transmission house: the National Veneer Products Company, makers of the Perfecto line of trunks; the Fast Feed Drill & Tool Corporation; the Lyradion Manufacturing Company, which made radios and phonographs; and the Mishawaka Public Improvement Corporation, which owned and operated the Hotel Mishawaka — a one-man industrial group of exactly the kind the Midwest's manufacturing towns produced. He was also, on Howard's biography, president of the Mishawaka Trust and Savings Company, organized in 1905 to succeed the old bank of Clark & Whitson, and he served as mayor of Mishawaka from 1902 to 1906 — the pulley president in the mayor's chair, the Government section's record at anchor size here. The four industrial houses are carried at the strength of the single biographical carrier that names them: no output, employment, or closing figures for them were verified in this build, and none are printed. Mix died on 11 December 1927 in Chicago, and the record reached does not carry his portfolio past its holder — nor, as the closing entry names, the Dodge presidency past Mix: who presided over Dodge Manufacturing between 1927 and Reliance Electric's acquisition of 1967 is not documented in the record reached for this build.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), the biography of Melvin W. Mix, read first-hand — the New Orleans exhibit of 1885 and the January 1886 start; the Chicago branch in 1890; the executorship and vice-presidency on Wallace Dodge's death and the election to the presidency in 1895; Hosford and Endlich as the other officers; the business more than doubled in a decade; the presidency of the Mishawaka Trust and Savings Company, organized 1905; the mayoralty of 1902–1906.
2. Businesses & Banks — "Dodge Manufacturing" (the Mix era) and "Melvin Mix's other Mishawaka houses" — the succession stated as election on the founder's death, printed here against Howard's finer sequence; the 1910 scale of sixty acres and more than 1,200 employees; the four controlled companies at their single carrier's strength; the death of 11 December 1927.