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1851–1950s · THE STATIONS
Three roads, three stations — and a thin building record: Mishawaka had a depot from its railroad's first years. In June 1859 the dead of the Springbrook wreck were "brought to the Mishawaka depot until the bodies could be claimed" — the Michigan Southern's station, standing by 1859, eight years after the first train. The depot record of the New York Central era stands in the line's station listing: Mishawaka, mile 435.8, a station of the main line between South Bend and Osceola. The building's own history — its site, its form, its rebuilding and its end — was not reached beyond the photographic record gathered in David Longest's Railroad Depots of Northern Indiana, which this note names as the settling source; the file claims the station and its work, and does not invent its architecture.
The other two: The Grand Trunk's Mishawaka station stands in the guides — the Official Guide of 1875 and the road's public timetable — at the north-side line; no building record for it was reached. The Elkhart & Western's station is the one Mishawaka depot whose fate is fully documented, because it was absorbed by the works it served: photographed about 1900 as the road's Mishawaka station, it became Building 45 of the Ball Band/Uniroyal plant and was demolished with the plant. No railroad station building survives in Mishawaka today.
Sources:
- Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the wreck dead of June 1859 brought to the Mishawaka depot.
- The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern station listing; Indiana passenger-station list SL 281 — Mishawaka at mile 435.8 on the main line; Mishawaka at mile 231.9 on the Grand Trunk's line in the Official Guide of 1875.
- Monon Society, New York Central page (photographs courtesy Pioneer Railcorp) — the Elkhart & Western station about 1900, later Building 45 at Uniroyal, now demolished.
- David E. Longest, Railroad Depots of Northern Indiana (Arcadia, 2007) — named here as the settling source for the Mishawaka depot buildings' photographic record, not reached at entry strength.