Dodge, an unnamed election, and Mason Petro

1922 – 1939

William W. Dodge, from January 1922: The recount's winner took office in January 1922, and the News-Times of 10 May 1922 names him in the office — "Mayor William W. Dodge" of Mishawaka. That sighting and the recount story are what the sources read give of the man: no source read for this section states his occupation, and none states any kinship to the Dodge Manufacturing family whose works dominated the town; neither is claimed here. His opponent of 1921 had held the office eight years; how long Dodge held it is the first of this section's open points.

The election of November 1925 — unnamed: On the four-year cadence the directory describes, Mishawaka next chose a mayor in November 1925, for the term from January 1926. No source read for this section names the winner. If Dodge was re-elected, he served until January 1930 and the succession loses no name; if he was beaten or retired, a mayor whose name this record does not carry held the city's office for those four years. The gap is printed, not bridged: the sources that would settle it — the South Bend Tribune of November 1925 and the Polk directories of the later 1920s, whose Mishawaka government pages name the sitting officers — are named in the gaps entry.

Mason L. Petro, from January 1930: The next name the record carries is documented by the Political Graveyard's events list: on 5 November 1929 Mason L. Petro, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Mishawaka. He took office in January 1930. The Graveyard's biography adds one fact that bears on his standing: Petro was an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention of 1932, a party post that fits a sitting mayor. The city's Eberhart-Petro golf course — built with W.P.A. labor in the later 1930s, as De Kever records — still carries his surname; why it does, no source read for this section states, and the name is printed here without a reason assigned. Petro's end in the office is not in the sources read. Indiana's city-election cycle shifted by a year in the 1930s — the pattern is visible in the standard lists for Gary and Hammond, where the men elected in 1929 served until 1935 — so the election that next chose a Mishawaka mayor fell in November 1934, for a term from January 1935. Whether Petro was re-elected then, or another man took the office, the record read does not say; it is the second open point of the succession.

The administration of the 1930s, whoever headed it: What is documented about Mishawaka's government in the decade is its working, not its mayor's name. De Kever records that the municipal government "quickly developed an outstanding relationship with the W.P.A.," which built streets, parks and recreation facilities and utilities infrastructure, such as sewers, throughout the city in the latter 1930s; the W.P.A.'s surviving handiwork includes the Battell Park rock garden, the drainage and stonework of the Eberhart-Petro course, an addition to the Carnegie library, and the Mishawaka Reservoir caretaker's residence. The city celebrated its centennial in May 1932, in the worst of the Depression, under the administration then in office. A government that cannot be named at its head can still be followed in its works, and this section prints both halves of that sentence honestly.

Sources:

1. The Political Graveyard, Mishawaka office page, "Events and Candidates" — 1929 Nov 5: Mason L. Petro (Dem), elected; and the biography of Mason L. Petro — mayor of Mishawaka, elected 1929, alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Indiana, 1932.
2. South Bend News-Times, 10 May 1922 (Hoosier State Chronicles) — "Mayor William W. Dodge" of Mishawaka, in office that spring.
3. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the city's W.P.A. relationship and works of the later 1930s; Centennial Week, 15–21 May 1932.
4. The Political Graveyard office pages for Gary and Hammond, Indiana — the 1929-elected mayors serving to 1935 (Roswell O. Johnson at Gary; Charles O. Schonert, 1930–35, at Hammond), the comparative evidence for Indiana's shifted 1930s cycle.