The fire department: a founding anchor

1904 – today

The regular department: Like the police, the fire department became a regular, paid city service through the 1904 Public Utilities Company settlement — before it, fire protection in the town was the volunteer arrangement of the nineteenth-century Midwest, which the sources read for this section do not describe in detail and which this entry therefore does not reconstruct. The department the 1921 directory prints is a two-station force: Central Station No. 1 at 112 North Church Street, under Chief Charles R. Shelton, with G. Edwin Christian as assistant chief and William Roggeman as captain; and No. 2 Station at 1102 North Main Street, under Captain O. M. Goeller — with a printed table of fire-alarm boxes across the city, the era's dispatch system. The department followed the city's growth as the annexations pushed the boundaries: in October 1963 Mishawaka dedicated a new North Side Fire Station on North Main Street in Normain Heights, the subdivision the city had annexed in 1947. The chiefs' succession, the stations' full course and the department's fires belong to the coming fire & safety treatment; this entry is the founding anchor only.

Sources:

1. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921) — Central No. 1 at 112 N. Church, Chief Charles R. Shelton, Assistant Chief G. Edwin Christian, Captain Wm. Roggeman; No. 2 at 1102 N. Main, Captain O. M. Goeller; the fire-alarm box list.
2. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the 1904 agreement enabling a regular fire department; the North Side Fire Station dedicated in October 1963 on North Main Street in Normain Heights.