The directory census: one hotel, then two

Mishawaka · The directories' count · 1868–1921

The directories let the trade be counted, and the count is the story of a small city's lodging. In 1868 the county directory names exactly one Mishawaka hotel, the Milbur House. Polk's state gazetteer of 1916–17 — whose Mishawaka header boasts of "first class hotels" among the city's advantages, on two railroads, the Chicago & Grand Trunk and the New York Central — lists exactly two: the Hotel Milburn at 106 S. Main and the Hotel Mishawaka at 212 S. Main, Bert DeVault manager. The grand hotel also bought display type in the same volume: "MISHAWAKA HOTEL (American and European), Bert DeVault Mngr, One Block From Lincoln Highway" — the house trading under the plainer name in its own advertisement, both plans offered, the highway a block away as the selling point: the railroad hotel already courting the motorist. The 1921 Polk city directory adds the trade's lower tier at its true size: beside the Milburn under E. E. Hans stand the rooming houses, the directory's "Furnished Rooms" kept by Charles Ashbaugh and by Philip W. Woollet — the lodging of commercial travelers, factory hands and the unarrived, carried in this record at the directory's own scale, two lines. This build's owners roster, which works ten directory years from 1868 to 1987 taking proprietor lines, banks lodging lines at 1868 and 1921 only; that is the roster's evidence — it takes owner-name lines, and firm-only entries do not enter it — not proof that no later house traded. What the directories establish is narrower and solid: from 1868 to 1921 Mishawaka's hotel trade never exceeded two houses, and one of them was always the Milburn.

Sources:

1. Polk, Indiana Gazetteer and Business Directory (1916–17), Mishawaka entry — the header's "first class hotels," the two hotel lines, the Hotel Mishawaka display advertisement; read first-hand.
2. Polk, Mishawaka City Directory (1921) — the Milburn under E. E. Hans; "Furnished Rooms," Ashbaugh and Woollet; as carried in this build's Owners Roster fragment, which also carries the 1868 line and the roster's ten-year sweep.