"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 decade. The city's own numbers are not in dispute: the population file's series, read from the census volumes themselves, runs 15,195 in 1920 to 28,630 in 1930, a gain of 13,435 people, or 88.4 percent. The question the claim turns on is everybody else's numbers.

The record. The test needs no reconstruction: the Census Bureau printed it. The 1950 census's second volume, Characteristics of the Population, carries in its Table 4 every Indiana city of 10,000 or more from 1890 to 1950, with the Bureau's own columns of increase for each decade. For 1920–30 the table runs: Gary, 55,378 to 100,426, up 81.3 percent; Hammond, 36,004 to 64,560, up 79.3 percent; East Chicago, up 52.3 percent; South Bend, 70,983 to 104,193, up 46.8 percent; Michigan City, up 37.4 percent; Elkhart, 24,277 to 32,949, up 35.7 percent; Muncie, up 27.4 percent; Richmond, up 21.4 percent. No city in the Bureau's table outgrew Mishawaka's 88.4 percent. In people rather than rates the order reverses — Gary added 45,048 and South Bend 33,210 against Mishawaka's 13,435 — so the claim is a rate claim, and as a rate, among cities, it stands.

What the word "city" carries. It carries the whole verdict. "City" in Indiana is a legal class, not a compliment: the census of 1920 counted the state as 98 cities and 392 towns, and the town class outran the boast inside the same decade. Highland, in Lake County — incorporated as a town on 4 April 1910 and a town still — went from 542 people in 1920 to 1,553 in 1930, up 186.5 percent on the census's own historical tables. Beech Grove, at Indianapolis's edge — incorporated as a town in 1906 — went from 1,459 to 3,552, up 143.5 percent. Read as "the fastest-growing place in Indiana," the claim fails on the census's figures; read as written, with "city" meaning a city, it is supported. Two further qualifications belong inside the entry rather than under it. The decade's count includes ground taken in: the Twin Branch addition of 1927, on the city history's dating as the population file prints it, lies inside the 1930 figure, so the 88.4 percent measures people who moved to Mishawaka and some who woke up in it. And the claim is decade-specific twice over — Mishawaka itself had grown faster in the 1910s, up 113.8 percent, in the years when Gary and Hammond were making their first booms; the 1920s are the one decade in which this city's rate led the state's city class. One check remains for the claim's outer edge: the Bureau's table covers cities of 10,000 or more, and the full settlement is the 1930 census's place table read entire for city-class places that never reached 10,000 by 1950 — a named pull, not made, and the verdict below is stated at the table's strength.

The verdict. Supported — with its own word doing the work. On the Census Bureau's own table, no Indiana city grew faster in the 1920s than Mishawaka did. The sentence survives exactly as far as the word "city" reaches; past it, two towns beat it on the same record, and the entry prints them beside it rather than letting the boast travel further than its evidence.

Sources:

1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population: 1950, Vol. II, Characteristics of the Population, Part 14 (Indiana), Table 4, "Population of cities of 10,000 or more from earliest census to 1950" — the 1920 and 1930 counts and the Bureau's own percent-of-increase columns for Mishawaka, Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, South Bend, Michigan City, Elkhart, Muncie, and Richmond (census.gov copy of the volume).
2. William A. De Kever, Mishawaka: 1833–1983 — the growth claim at the city history's strength, as carried in this history's spine; the Twin Branch addition's 1927 dating is his, as the population file prints it.
3. This history's population file — the city's series read from the census volumes (15,195 in 1920; 28,630 in 1930) and the boundary record that frames it.
4. Town of Highland, Indiana, the town's own history page — incorporation as a town, 4 April 1910; the 1930 count of 1,553; the census-derived historical table (542 in 1920; +186.5 percent for the decade) as carried in the town's demographic record.
5. State of Indiana historical marker program / Indianapolis Star, the Beech Grove entry — incorporated as a town in 1906; 1,459 in 1920 and 3,552 by 1930 (+143.5 percent) on the census-derived table.
6. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census (1920), Indiana bulletin — the state counted as 98 cities and 392 towns, the classes the claim's wording turns on.