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THE SUCCESSION, PROFILE BY PROFILE — THE GOVERNMENT LEG OWNS THE OFFICE; THE PERSONS ARE HERE
Manuel M. Fisher, 1899–1902 — the first mayor: Fisher won the first mayoral election, on 2 May 1899, 656 votes to 612 over E. Volney Bingham — the justice of the peace and future state senator profiled in the long-tail pass below — and was sworn on 8 May 1899, the day the town board held its last meeting. De Kever carries him in office until September 1902. The 1921 Polk directory's ex-mayor list prints his tenure as 1900–1902, a year late at the front end against the sworn date De Kever and the Political Graveyard (1899–1902) both carry; the directory's figure stands as the outlier. Fisher's later business course is in the trades record: a man who had worked his way up in the Perkins windmill company from its founding era became its president and led its turn into gas engines, on the engine-trade history's account carried in the Businesses fragment. The September 1902 handover fits no clean two-year cycle from May 1899, and whether an intervening election was held in 1901 no source read records — the hole is the Government leg's gap 12, and it stands inside this profile, unsmoothed.
Melville W. Mix, 1902–1906: Mix — a Democrat in the Political Graveyard's entry — was a manufacturer who had succeeded Wallace H. Dodge at the head of Dodge Manufacturing and was president of the Mishawaka Trust and Savings Company. Howard (1907), written while the memory was fresh, says Mix "from 1902 until 1906 was the mayor of Mishawaka," and the Polk ex-mayor list agrees; the Political Graveyard prints 1902–05, and its shorter span stands as the dissent. His mayoralty's act outlasted it: with Martin Beiger and other civic leaders he formed the Mishawaka Public Utilities Company, the device that financed the 1904 city hall and the city's regular police and fire departments. He is the same Dodge president profiled at full size in the founders article below — where the name itself stands in conflict, Melville in the government record, Melvin in the business record, both printed.
Charles Frank, 1906–1910: Frank, a Republican in the Political Graveyard's entry, was born 18 March 1842 in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, a Civil War veteran and sawmill owner; he died in 1911 and is buried in Mishawaka City Cemetery. The Polk list gives him 1906–1910, and the press record bears it out: Frank was mayor when Vice President Fairbanks visited on 28 October 1908, and he presided at the Historical Pageant of July 1909. The Political Graveyard prints his mayoralty as 1905–06 only — against a directory list and two dated press fixpoints, that entry simply fails, and it is printed here so the failure stands where a reader checking the compilation will meet it.
John A. Herzog, 1910–1914: The Polk ex-mayor list closes its early run with Herzog, 1910–1914; the directory is this profile's only term source. His afterlife in office is documented in the same volume: by 1921 John A. Herzog was Mishawaka's postmaster, with David H. Wilber, a councilman of the 1904 roster, as his assistant postmaster — the former mayor holding the city's federal office while a successor's administration sat in the hall he had left, the mayor-to-postmaster path the patronage age ran on.
Ralph W. Gaylor, 1914–1922: Gaylor, a Republican, holds the office across the whole span the 1921 directory can see. A Fifth Ward voter's letter in the South Bend News-Times of 7 October 1921 says the writer voted for Gaylor "the last two times he has run for mayor" across "the past eight years" — consistent, in both counts, with a first election in November 1913, a term from January 1914, and a second victory in 1917, over the Democrat Achille C. Colpaert. His 1921 campaign slogan was "He has kept the faith." On 8 November 1921 the Democrat William W. Dodge beat him by eleven votes on the first count; the recount of 25–26 November, before a bipartisan commission in Superior Court room No. 1, rebuilt Dodge's margin to twenty votes, and the News-Times of 27 November records that Gaylor watched ballot by ballot until about six o'clock Saturday night, when he "gave up the ghost." He left the office in January 1922.
William W. Dodge, from January 1922 — with the 1925 hole inside his profile: The recount's winner took office in January 1922, and the News-Times of 10 May 1922 names him in the office — "Mayor William W. Dodge." In December 1922 his administration's police cleanup stands behind Judge Raab's sterner bootlegging sentences in the city court, on the press of record. No source read states his occupation, and none states any kinship to the Dodge Manufacturing family; neither is claimed here. The hole: on the four-year cadence, Mishawaka next chose a mayor in November 1925, for the term from January 1926. No source read names the winner. If Dodge was re-elected, he served until January 1930 and the succession loses no name; if he was beaten or retired, a mayor whose name this record does not carry held the office for those four years. The gap is the Government leg's gap 1; its settling sources are the South Bend Tribune of November 1925 and the Polk directories of the later 1920s. It is printed here, inside the profile it interrupts, and not bridged.
Sources:
- The Government fragment of this build — the first-mayors, Gaylor and Dodge articles whole, with their sources: the Polk directory of 1921 and its ex-mayor list, Howard (1907), the Political Graveyard, De Kever, and the South Bend News-Times of 1917, 1921 and 1922 (Hoosier State Chronicles).
- The Businesses fragment of this build — Manuel M. Fisher's rise to the Perkins presidency, from Gas Engine Magazine's company history.