The Ball Band Ground — the Red Ball, and the park that stands where it stood

1886–2000 · FAME THAT OUTLIVED ITS FACTORY

The fame mechanism: For most of a century the largest fact in Mishawaka was a factory on the river, and the factory's mark was known wherever its goods were sold. The Mishawaka Woolen Manufacturing Company — Ball Band — put its red ball on the all-knit wool boot that Martin V. Beiger and Adolphus Eberhart brought out in 1886, and the mark's course is fixed in the company's own published history: actual use of the Red Ball began in 1891, and in 1901 the RED BALL device and the name BALL-BAND were registered as trademarks. From that ground on the St. Joseph River the company's footwear went out across the country — by 1909, on the federal Census of Manufactures' own showing, this was the only establishment manufacturing rubber boots and shoes in Indiana, and the city's most important branch of manufacture. The fame was a trademark's fame: a red ball, printed on boots and shoes in farm and logging country everywhere, tied by everyone who wore it to no city at all — which is the usual fate of factory fame, and why the ground needs this chapter to be named.

The ground today: The factory is gone. The Ball Band record of this history carries the whole course — the closure of 1997, the implosion of 17 June 2000 watched as a civic spectacle, the demolition completed in 2001, and the cleanup-funds suit that followed. What stands on the ground now was verified for this history in November 2026: Robert C. Beutter Riverfront Park, established on the site in 2005, about seven acres named for the mayor who presided over both the closing and the acquisition, holding the river race, a perennial garden, and the Ball-Band Factory marker that stands on the site today — the marker carrying the boot's claim in its own words, “the first wool boot to hold its shape without shrinking or stretching.” The works' one surviving house stands a short walk away: the Beiger mansion at 317 East Lincolnway, on the National Register since 1973, a mansion that burned to its walls and was raised again, standing in November 2026 as an inn and event venue. Fame's forwarding address, in Mishawaka, is a park, a marker, and the founder's house.

Sources:

1. The Ball Band flagship record of this history — the company whole: the 1886 boot, the mark's dates of 1891 and 1901 from the company's published history, the 1997 closure, the implosion of 17 June 2000, and the grounds today, verified November 2026.
2. Census of Manufactures, 1909, read from the page images — the single Indiana establishment manufacturing rubber boots and shoes, at Mishawaka, the city's most important branch of manufacture; carried whole in this history's fashion record.
3. National Register of Historic Places — the Beiger House, 317 E. Lincolnway, listed 28 August 1973 (reference no. 73000042).