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16 DECEMBER 1903 · TWIN BRANCH
The reversal: When bulk power came to the valley it came from a dam on Mishawaka's own river, at Twin Branch, east of the city — and its first electricity, on 16 December 1903, lit not Mishawaka but Elkhart. The sequence stands in the Technology section's frame in one sentence: electric light in Mishawaka was a city-owned service before it was a regional one — the national encyclopaedia of the charter era records that Mishawaka owned and operated its own electric light plant — "and when bulk power came it came from a dam three miles upriver whose first electricity, on 16 December 1903, lit not Mishawaka but Elkhart." A hydroelectric plant seated on this city's ground, built on this river's fall, sent its first current past the city that hosted it to light the next town down the line. The dam and its plant went on to their long career in the power record — the steam frontier of the next entry stands on the same ground — but the first day's direction of flow is the oddity, and it is documented at the strength of the build's own technology record.
Sources: the Technology section of this history — the city-owned electric light plant of the charter era, and the Twin Branch dam's first electricity of 16 December 1903 lighting Elkhart; the Businesses section — the Twin Branch hydro record at first power, 16 December 1903.