Austin R. Klein: forty-two years at the city's light plant

1921 – 1963

The type case: Every city in this history keeps one servant whose career measures what service meant before it became a résumé line, and Mishawaka's is a utility man. The Polk directory of 1921 lists the young city's appointed officers, and among them, between the chief of police and the secretary of the Board of Health, stands "City Electrician — A. R. Klein." The office was the working end of the municipal plant the charter generation had built: the city owned its waterworks and its electric light plant, and the electrician was the man who kept the lights on. Twenty-eight years later the directory of 1949 lists the officers of a city five times the size, and at the foot of the water and electric office stands "Superintendent — Austin R. Klein." The directory of 1956 lists him again, superintendent of the Water and Electric Office at 126 North Church. The directory of 1963 lists him again. Four books, forty-two years apart at the ends, one man at the same municipal desk grown larger around him: electrician of a town-sized plant in 1921, superintendent of the city utility — its pumping stations at the ends of North Church and North Virgil and on Virginia Street, its office, its crews — through the directories of 1949, 1956 and 1963.

What the record does and does not say: The directories prove Klein at the desk in 1921 and in 1949, 1956 and 1963; they do not prove every year between 1921 and 1949, and this section does not smooth the span into a claim of unbroken service — it prints the span as the record gives it, four fixpoints across forty-two years, the longest documented service at one Mishawaka desk in the whole build. How he came to the plant, what he built there across the decades of the Twin Branch age, and when and how he left it are not in the sources reached: the record of a working superintendent lives in the utility's own reports and in the Board of Public Works minutes, and in the obituary the Enterprise or the Tribune would have printed at his death. He stands in this section at the size the directories give him — which is, for a servant, the essential size: he was there, at the same work, for longer than any mayor, clerk or chief the city ever kept.

Sources:

1. R. L. Polk & Co., South Bend City Directory (1921), Mishawaka section — "City Electrician — A. R. Klein" in the city officials list.
2. R. L. Polk & Co., Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka City Directory (1949) — "Superintendent 'City Water and Electric' — Austin R Klein" (Miscellaneous Information) and "Water and Electric Office, Austin R Klein Supt" (classified City Offices).
3. R. L. Polk & Co., Polk's South Bend and Mishawaka City Directory (1956) — "Water and Electric Office, Austin R Klein Supt, 126 N Church."
4. R. L. Polk & Co., Polk's South Bend City Directory (1963), Mishawaka section — Municipal Utilities, Austin R. Klein superintendent, 126 N. Church.