The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Stories Told — The Claims the City Makes of Itself, Tested
Every place keeps a stock of sentences about itself, and most of Mishawaka's have already been put to the record in the files that own their subjects — the Princess in the Story of Mishawaka section and the folklore file, the Ball Band closing date in the woolen works' own flagship, the Humvee's design in the inventors file, the biggest stand-up the city never produced in the people file. Those tests stand where they were run, and this section gathers them at the end, at the size of an index. What it does at full size is the remainder: the superlative claims of the city's own promotion that no sibling file has yet tested — a school yearbook's ranking of the Belgian settlement, a trade magazine's crown for the windmill works, a wagon company's world billing, a bus order's record, a booster decade's growth boast, and a historian's large sentence about the iron years. Each entry names the claimant, prints the claim as it was made, tests it against the first-hand record where one exists, and states the verdict in plain words. Where no test can be run, the entry says so and names the record that would settle it. A claims file that printed only successes would be a booster sheet; this one prints the failures at the size of the successes.
"The fastest-growing city in Indiana" — the boast of the twenties
1920 – 1930, as the city history tells it
The claim. The city history's account of the 1920s — William A. De Kever's Mishawaka: 1833–1983 , the telling this history's spine carries at his strength — holds that Mishawaka was the fastest-growing city in Indiana during the…
"The second largest Belgian-American settlement in the United States"
The Miskodeed, 1963
The claim. Mishawaka High School's yearbook, The Miskodeed , in its 1963 edition, wrote of the Belgian settlement on the city's west side that it was "thought to be the second largest Belgian-American settlement in the United…
"The world's largest manufacturer of windmills" — Perkins
The trade magazine's judgment, for 1899
The claim. The Perkins Wind Mill Company of Mishawaka — the windmill works of the businesses file, maker of the mill whose 1869 patent the inventors file confirms from Scientific American — is crowned in the trade magazine Gas…
"The world's largest manufacturer of farm wagons" — Milburn
The billing of the Toledo years, from 1875
The claim. The Milburn Wagon Company carries in the trade literature the billing "the largest manufacturer of farm wagons in the world," and this history's automobiles and founders files carry it at the strength its carriers give…
"The largest single order for buses ever placed" — AM General's 620
Washington, 1974
The claim. When AM General of Mishawaka entered the transit-bus business in 1974, its first great order came from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority: 620 Metropolitan buses. The company's own photographic history…
"The largest center of heavy industry west of Detroit" — the iron decade
1835 – 1845, on Merle Blue's judgment
The claim. The historian Merle Blue's judgment, carried in the city history and repeated in this history's spine and industrial files at his strength, holds that in the decade before the mid-1840s Mishawaka "was the largest…
Two of Bock's crowns that cannot be tested — the mats and the raincoats
Milton Bock's company history, 1937
The claims. Milton Bock's "Ball Band History Parallels Story of Mishawaka Growth," the company's history published in the South Bend Tribune in 1937 and quoted throughout this history's Ball Band flagship, carries two…
"The largest margin in the city's history" — Canfield, 1959
The mayoral election of 1959
The claim. The city history's account of Mayor E. F. "Gene" Canfield's election in 1959 — carried in this history's government file and spine at De Kever's strength — holds that he won "by the largest margin in the city's…
The rest of the stock — tested where they live
The claims below were tested inside the files that own their subjects. The tests stand there at full size; this index prints the verdict and the address, one line each, so that the city's whole stock of claims can be read in one…
"Alanson Hurd founded Mishawaka" / "The first settlers came in 1830" — the founding claims, tested as a pair
The pair, as they circulate · one verdict each
Claim one — the founder. That Alanson M. Hurd founded Mishawaka is the city's standing shorthand: the wealth record opens with it ("Mishawaka begins as one man's speculation"), the mayor's 2026 State of the City address dates the…
The oldest-institution claims, one by one — school, bank, zoo, and two papers of record correcting themselves
Each claim quoted, tested, and verdicted in turn
"Mishawaka High School, established 1874" — the oldest school. Claim. The high school's published standing form dates the school to 1874, and the schools record calls its 1924 building "the oldest continuously occupied…
"Roughly 300 jobs and billions in investment" — the mayor's Microsoft figures, and the 100 Center presentation, tested
The innovation-era claims · 2024–2026, at the 1900s billings' discipline
Claim one — the jobs and the billions. In his State of the City address of April 2025, the mayor of Mishawaka claimed the Microsoft campus for his city's future at these figures, as the current record of this history prints them…