The Milburn House: the nineteenth century's hotel

Southeast corner of Main and Second (Lincolnway) · Documented 1850s–1921

For at least sixty years, Mishawaka had effectively one hotel, and the Milburn House was it. Ward Baker's account of the town on the eve of the Civil War, published in the Indiana Magazine of History, sets it in the business district's plan: "On the southeast corner stood the Milburn House, a local hotel popular with travelers and used by the local people for parties and meetings." The 1868 county directory gives the house its first directory line and its keeper — printed "Milbur House, U.S. Dodge proprietor, at Main and Second." The spelling conflict is printed whole, as it stands: the 1868 directory's "Milbur" against Baker's "Milburn," the spelling the name carries everywhere after — in Polk's gazetteer of 1916–17 ("Hotel Milburn, Mrs. Nicholas Eckstein, manager, 106 S. Main"), in the 1921 city directory, which carries the house under E. E. Hans, and in the city's own ground, where Milburn Place and Milburn Boulevard keep the name today. The keepers the record names are three, across fifty-three years: U.S. Dodge in 1868, Mrs. Nicholas Eckstein in 1916, E. E. Hans in 1921. Whose name the house bears, and who kept it before Dodge, the record reached does not state. The circumstantial case is strong and is printed as circumstance, not fact: George Milburn and Thomas H. Milburn stand among the incorporators of the Mishawaka Hydraulic Company in 1867; George Milburn, born in England in 1820, began business at Mishawaka, ran fourteen years in merchandising, built the Milburn Wagon Company from 1857 and presided over it until 1880, chaired the town's great patriotic meeting of April 1861, and left for Kansas that year — the town's leading merchant of exactly the Milburn House's decades. No source reached says he kept the hotel. The link is a named gap; Chapman's full Mishawaka chapter of 1880, the Enterprise files and the deed record are its settling sources. After 1921 the house leaves the record — whether it closed, was renamed or faded into rooms, the directories on the Brain do not say — and the Hotel Mishawaka, two blocks south, carried the trade alone. What stands on its corner today is likewise not stated in the record reached; the corner is downtown's oldest commercial ground, and the house's end and its ground's present use are one gap, settled by the same directory runs and the deed record.

Sources:

1. Ward Baker, "Mishawaka on the Eve of Conflict," Indiana Magazine of History — the Milburn House at the southeast corner, popular with travelers, used for parties and meetings; read first-hand.
2. St. Joseph County Directory (1868) — "Milbur House, U.S. Dodge proprietor, Main and Second," as carried in this build's Food and Owners Roster fragments.
3. Polk, Indiana Gazetteer and Business Directory (1916–17) — "Hotel Milburn, Mrs Nicholas Eckstein mgr, 106 S Main"; read first-hand. Polk, Mishawaka City Directory (1921) — the house under E. E. Hans, as carried in the Owners Roster.
4. Howard (1907) — George and Thomas H. Milburn among the Hydraulic Company's 1867 incorporators. Cutler, History of Kansas (1883) — George Milburn's Mishawaka course, the wagon company, the 1880 removal; Chapman (1880) — Milburn presiding at Mishawaka's meeting of 15 April 1861.