The old building after: easements, an aircraft museum that never was, and a dining room

1969–present · 122 North Hill Street after the library left

The preservation course: "Ownership of the library went to the City of Mishawaka who then transferred it to Beiger Heritage Corporation, a Mishawaka-based not-for-profit preservation organization. With two protective easements assuring its protection, Beiger Heritage sold the Carnegie library to George Kilbey in February, 1976. Although it never occurred, Kilbey proposed using the library as an aircraft museum." The building passed later to Mark Kilbey, who "attempted to sell the property to Carnegie Properties, Inc. in 1995 for use as a meeting and banquet facility. Ultimately, Beiger Heritage Corporation filed suit against Carnegie Properties, Inc. because it was not allowed to exercise its right of first refusal on the sale. In June, 1996, the Indiana Court of Appeals awarded Beiger Heritage Corporation, now the owner of the Carnegie Library, the right to purchase the building." When Adrian Scott Fine prepared the nomination in 1997 the building stood for sale, vacant for long stretches with "deterioration and minor vandalism" from roof leaks and broken windows — and yet "nearly all of the primary features and materials intact," the front desk reportedly stored in its own basement, the 1937 bicycle racks still in place. The listing followed: the Mishawaka Carnegie Library entered the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, number 98001048, for its architecture and its place in the city's history.

The present tenant: The building's working life resumed in a form no one at the 1916 opening proposed: in 2018 it opened as a restaurant, Jesus Latin Grill and Tequila Bar, its Flemish gables and terra cotta fronting a dining room where the adult reading room's six tables stood. The 2025 News-Times feature calls the house "Jesus Cantina"; the restaurant's name as opened in 2018 stands in the encyclopedia's account of the building, and the two name forms are printed as the two records give them. What matters to this history is the survival: of Indiana's 164 Carnegie libraries, nearly three hundred of the nation's Carnegie buildings having been lost by the nomination's count, Mishawaka's stands entire — read in, dined in, and listed.

Sources:

1. Fine, Carnegie Library nomination (1997), sections 7 and 8 — the city and Beiger Heritage transfers; the easements; the Kilbey sales and the unbuilt aircraft museum; the 1995 sale attempt; the June 1996 Court of Appeals ruling; the building's condition and integrity in 1997; the national Carnegie losses.
2. National Register of Historic Places listing, Carnegie Library (Mishawaka), ref. 98001048, 1998.
3. Wikipedia, "Mishawaka Carnegie Library," drawing on the nomination and the restaurant's opening — the 2018 opening as Jesus Latin Grill and Tequila Bar.
4. Evans, "Pages in Transit," South Bend News-Times (2025) — the house named "Jesus Cantina," printed against the 2018 name.