The peak and the long decline: 1963 to 1992

Census years 1963, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987 and 1992

1963 is the employment peak of the whole series. The 1963 census counted 82 establishments in Mishawaka, 26 of them with twenty employees or more; 10,245 employees in all — the largest factory count the federal record ever gives the city — with a payroll of $66,744,000; 7,088 production workers, 14,425,000 man-hours, $40,303,000 of production wages; value added, adjusted, $114,961,000; and new capital expenditures of $4,212,000. Four years later the turn had begun. In 1967: 74 establishments, 40 of them large; about 9,600 employees; payroll $72.6 million; 6,500 production workers; wages $45.0 million; value added $121.5 million on shipments of $214.1 million. The 1967 volume's industry table for the city makes the old point again in the new form: of Mishawaka's industry groups, exactly one — fabricated metal products, 18 establishments and some 500 employees, $8.8 million of shipments — is small and mixed enough to print. Every other group that met the table's size line was withheld under the rule against disclosing individual companies. The rubber works and the machinery shops that were the city's industry stand inside an undifferentiated remainder, as they had in the thirties.

The last five rows run downhill in hands and uphill in dollars. For 1972 the next census's comparative columns, read from the 1977 volume's page, give all employees 7,400 and value added $136.7 million; the 1972 volume's own full row was not read from its own page and stands as a named remainder. In 1977: 90 establishments, 35 of them large; 7,200 employees; payroll $98.7 million; 5,200 production workers paid $64.7 million; value added $214.1 million; shipments $368.8 million; new capital spending $16.4 million. In 1982: 100 establishments; 5,500 employees; payroll $111.2 million; value added $222.7 million; shipments $416.4 million. In 1987: 111 establishments; 5,300 employees; payroll $133.9 million; value added $246.5 million; shipments $473.7 million. And in 1992, the last row of the published series: 119 establishments, 49 of them with twenty or more employees; 5,600 employees; payroll $178.6 million; 3,800 production workers paid $101.0 million; value added $408.7 million; materials $499.3 million; shipments $873.7 million; new capital expenditures $14.4 million. The mills-and-shops city of 1899, 56 little establishments averaging thirty-one wage earners apiece, had become a city of more, smaller-counted establishments around a shrunken factory core: employment in 1992 stood at fifty-five per cent of the 1963 peak, while shipments, in nominal dollars, had multiplied four times over since 1967. No later census of manufactures city row for Mishawaka was reached; the published place series ends at 1992, and the city's industrial course after that year stands in this build on other records.

Sources:

1. Census of Manufactures: 1963, Vol. III (Area Statistics), Table 4 — general statistics for SMSAs, counties and selected cities, 1963 and 1958: Indiana, Mishawaka, p. 15-8, read from the page image (money in thousands of dollars as printed).
2. Census of Manufactures: 1967, Vol. III (Area Statistics), Table 4, Indiana, Mishawaka, p. 15-7, and Table 8 (statistics by industry group for selected cities), p. 15-33, read from the page images (money in millions of dollars as printed).
3. Census of Manufactures: 1977, Vol. III (Geographic Area Series), Table 4 — all manufacturing statistics for the state, SMSAs, counties and selected cities, 1977 and 1972: Indiana, Mishawaka, p. 15-11, read from the page image (its 1972 comparative columns carry the 1972 figures printed above).
4. 1982 Census of Manufactures, Geographic Area Series, Indiana (MC82-A-15), Table 4 — statistics for selected places: Mishawaka, read from the page image.
5. 1987 Census of Manufactures, Geographic Area Series, Indiana (MC87-A-15), Table 4 — statistics for the state, MSAs, counties and selected places: Mishawaka, p. IN-11, read from the page image.
6. 1992 Census of Manufactures, Geographic Area Series, Indiana (MC92-A-15), Table 4 — statistics for the state, metropolitan areas, counties and selected places: Mishawaka, read from the page image.