The Moose: Mishawaka Lodge No. 1262

In the press by 1914 · hall at 214–16 South Main, 1921 · at 123 Bain Street in the federal record

The lodge in the press: The Loyal Order of Moose was working in Mishawaka by the winter of 1914, and its first appearances are sporting ones. The South Bend News-Times of 10 March 1914 reports the Mishawaka Moose indoor baseball club winning two games at "their hall," on its way to sixteen wins in eighteen games that season — a lodge with a hall and a team in the fraternal league. Three years later the same paper carries the lodge's business in a notice of 26 February 1917, headed "ATTENTION, MOOSE!": all members requested at Tuesday night's meeting for the nomination of officers, the initiation of a class, and a banquet after the meeting. The 1921 directory gives the lodge its address: the Loyal Order of Moose Hall, 214–16 South Main.

The federal record and the open present: The lodge's number is 1262. Federal exempt-organization records carry "Mishawaka Lodge No. 1262, Loyal Order of Moose" at 123 Bain Street, a fraternal beneficiary society — the Bain Street address is the lodge's later home, a few blocks from the South Main hall of 1921 — and carry beside it Mishawaka Chapter No. 98 of the Women of the Moose. The exemption date in those records, August 1935, is the order's group-ruling date and not this lodge's founding, and it is not printed as one; the lodge is documented in the press by 1914 in any case. The charter date itself has not been reached — Moose International's lodge records are the settling source — and the lodge's present state is not established: place records at the Bain Street address stand in open conflict, one carrying a Moose family center at the address as operating and another carrying the Mishawaka Moose Lodge there as permanently closed, under different telephone numbers. Both stand as they were found; which describes the lodge in November 2026 is a question the record reached does not answer.

Sources:

1. South Bend News-Times, 10 March 1914 and 26 February 1917 (Hoosier State Chronicles) — the indoor baseball club at "their hall"; the "Attention, Moose!" meeting notice; read first-hand.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory, 1921 — Loyal Order of Moose Hall, 214–16 S. Main.
3. Internal Revenue Service exempt-organizations records, as carried in the St. Joseph County exempt-organizations listings — Mishawaka Lodge No. 1262, Loyal Order of Moose, 123 Bain St.; Mishawaka Chapter No. 98, Women of the Moose; the 1935 date identified in the entry as the order's group ruling.
4. Place records for 123 Bain St., Mishawaka, consulted November 2026 — the conflict stated in the entry.