Mishawaka, Indiana · 20th century
1920s
69 dated events in 1920s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
20th century 69 dated mentions
1920s
- 1920West End State Bank to Valley American — the Wiekamp succession
The neighborhood bank: The West End State Bank was established on 5 June 1920 — the date the FDIC's institution-history record carries for the bank that became Valley American…
- 1920The Kenworthy: an assembled luxury six, Mishawaka, 1920
On that entry the Kenworthy of record is the model 6-55 of 1920, and no other model year is listed for the marque.
- 1920The Circus Grounds at Home: A Resident's Protest, 1920
The South Bend News-Times of 9 June 1920 carried a letter signed J. L. Rooks over the night of Monday, 7 June, at what he calls "the circus grounds" and "the circus field" in Mishawaka: the side shows and games of chance ran wide open, and the gambling features, he wrote, were an offense against decency and good morals.
- 1920–1930"The fastest-growing city in Indiana" — the boast of the twenties
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.
- 1920–1952Cavemen football's first era — the newspaper champions and Frank Steele
The compilation of those newspaper champions (AlmanacSports) names Mishawaka state champion three times: 1920 (7-0-2), 1925 (8-0), and 1926 (8-0).
- 1920–1952The Directories of Papers: Ayer, Rowell — and Miller, Named and Not Read
The Newspapers leg read Ayer for 1920 from the printed page and 1962 from its printed image (p. 338), through worldradiohistory.com — whose per-year addresses follow no pattern and whose HEAD requests return 403, both defects logged — and Ayer 1952 beside them…
- 1920–2019The Enterprise's twentieth century: directories, a daily month, a borrowed masthead, the Enos era
In 1920 Ayer lists a Friday Republican weekly, six columns, $1.50 a year, circulation 1,150, E. A. Jernegan editor and publisher, in a town the directory counts at 14,579.
- 1921The bank roster of 1921, whole — six houses, two of them new to the record
The classified heading it never worked, Banks and Bankers in Polk's Mishawaka City Directory of 1921, gives the year's whole roster at once, with addresses: the Farmers & Merchants State Bank, 114–116 Lincoln Way E.; the First National Bank, 101 Lincoln Way W.; the First Trust & Savings Bank, 101 Lincoln Way W.…
- 1921The Boundary: The Region's Zoo Is South Bend's
Deer had been kept in Potawatomi Park since 1912; the zoo proper was founded on 21 May 1921, when the park board accepted Erskine's gift of deer and voted the first appropriation, and it has grown into what its own account calls Indiana's oldest zoo: 23 acres and more than 400 animals, accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
- 1921Charles L. Ostrander: a Mishawaka print in the Metropolitan Museum
The directory record gives the surname a Mishawaka course at two points: the 1902–03 canvass lists "C. C. Ostrander," photographer, and the 1921 canvass lists "Charles L. Ostrander" under Photographers.
- 1921The hall geography of 1921: the directory's Mishawaka
The upstairs city: Fourteen years after Howard's roster, the 1921 Polk directory lets the club city be mapped address by address, and the map is a downtown of upstairs rooms.
- 1921The Knights of Columbus as an order: Council 1878 and the charter the number dates
The club is in Private Clubs; the order is here: Mishawaka Council 1878 of the Knights of Columbus stands as a club — its clubhouse at 208–210 Lincoln Way West, its officers in 1921, its working present — in the Private Clubs section of this history, and that record is not re-dug here.
- 1921The first census: two sellers in 1921
The whole field: Polk's 1921 directory gives Mishawaka a classified heading for automobiles, and under it stand exactly two names.
- 1921The Ford point: a branch, the O'Neils, and a succession
The point's course, in one line: The Ford point in Mishawaka runs: the South Bend distributor's branch at 215–217 Lincoln Way West in 1921; the O'Neil family's own store at 315 Lincoln Way West by 1956; the Kapson family's Jordan Ford City at 609 East Jefferson Boulevard by 1963…
- 1921–1932The savings and trust names — carried at their carriers' strength
First: the First Trust & Savings Bank of Mishawaka, advertising in the South Bend News-Times of 7 October 1921 as "in the same building and under the same management as the First National Bank" — the national bank's companion trust company, the period's ordinary pairing.
- 1921–1949The building-and-loan layer — the stratum the bank story never carried
The two states: In 1921 the heading Building and Loan Associations carries three houses: the Home Building & Loan Assn. of Mishawaka, at 126–128 Lincoln Way W.; the Mishawaka Building & Loan Assn., at 109 Lincoln Way E.…
- 1921–1949The finance companies — the service layer the industrial pass could not see
The two states: In 1921 the Citizens Finance Co. stands at 210–211 Mishawaka Trust Bldg., listed under both Bonds and Loans — the two headings between them describing the small-loan business exactly.
- 1921–1949Milk — the dairy trade and the delivery round
The two states: in 1921 the Mishawaka Farmers' Dairy Co., at 545 W. 3d, stands under Dairies and again under Milk Depots — the town's dairy company, a farmers' company by its name, bottling at W. 3d.
- 1921–1949The foundries and machine shops of the second rank
The record: the 1921 classified's metal headings are thin and mostly spoken for — Founders and Machinists carries the Perkins Corporation, 409 N. under Machinery Depots.
- 1921–1963Austin R. Klein: forty-two years at the city's light plant
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."
- 1921–1963The city court: Feig, Raab, Cavanaugh, LaCava
The 1921 directory names Ralph S. Feig , city judge (the directory text reaches this build through an OCR transcription, and the surname is printed as it comes down, in the Government section's caution and here).
- 1921–1979The firsts, tested: a mayor in 1963, and the bodies that do not name theirs
The baseline of 1921: the Polk directory of 1921 names Mishawaka's city government whole, and every name in it is a man's: seven councilmen, City Clerk Joseph DeLorenzi, Treasurer Willis L. Kimball, Controller Walter Michael, City Judge Ralph S. Feig.
- 1921–2007The post's civic course: funerals, baseball, and the town's work
The standing duties: Across the century the post's documented course is the standard Legion course, carried at Mishawaka size: the military funerals that begin the record in 1921 and continue as the post's honor-guard duty…
- 1921–2022The football pros — four Cavemen in the pro record, and Marian's one
George Gulyanics (1921–1990): Born and died in Mishawaka. An Indiana All-State fullback in 1938 — and the 1937 South Bend Golden Gloves welterweight champion of the boxing entry above.
- 1921–2026The police chiefs: Pfender, the undated chief, the long gap, Witkowski, Arendt
Valentine J. Pfender, 1921: The first chief the record names is the directory's: Valentine J. Pfender, chief in 1921, with the Jarretts under him and the Board of Public Safety over him.
- 1922Catholic Charities of the Diocese: the western office, and the Mishawaka house it administered
In 1922 Bishop Herman Alerding established Associated Catholic Charities, with offices in the Standard Building in Fort Wayne.
- 1922–1939Dodge, an unnamed election, and Mason Petro
William W. Dodge, from January 1922: The recount's winner took office in January 1922, and the News-Times of 10 May 1922 names him in the office — "Mayor William W. Dodge" of Mishawaka.
- 1922–1961Under United States Rubber: the subsidiary years
The sale: In 1922 the Mishawaka company became a subsidiary of the United States Rubber Company — the abstract of the company's own records at the IU South Bend Archives states the year, and the carriers agree.
- 1922–1998Irene Vernon: Louise Tate, and the three ways she left
The tie, exactly: Irene Vernon was born Irene Vergauwen — a Flemish name, and a fitting one in the city the Religion section's Belgian parishes built — on January 16, 1922, in Mishawaka.
- 1922–todayCivic firsts and organizations: the record reached
The community's own scholarship, which for South Bend is the Rev. Buford F. Gordon's 1922 social study of that city, is for Mishawaka the Powell family history kept by John Charles Bryant — the founding entry's griot — a family record rather than an institutional one, which is again the shape of this section.
- 1923The Lions: a century of the town's service club, and its gifts
The club's own account: in 1923 four men — William W. French, D. D. Gross, A. M. Jennings, and Edgar Duker — decided to start the club, and with nine others held their first meeting on 23 June 1923…
- 1923The Lions Club of Mishawaka: chartered 1923
Four men — William W. French, D. D. Gross, A. M. Jennings and Edgar Duker — with nine others held the club's first meeting on 23 June 1923.
- 1923–2001The Candoli brothers: two trumpets out of one house
The tie, exactly: Pete Candoli — Walter Joseph Candoli — was born June 28, 1923, in Mishawaka, and his brother Conte — Secondo "Conte" Candoli — was born in Mishawaka on July 12, 1927; one jazz journal's obituary printed July 27 for Conte's birth, and the conflict is noted at that weight.
- 1923–2020Warren E. Henke: buried here, decorated, his home unproven
What the federal record states: The Department of Veterans Affairs' Veterans Legacy Memorial carries a page for Warren E. Henke, an Army veteran of the Second World War, born 13 December 1923 and died 19 July 2020.
- 1923–2026The defining players, the supporting cast, and the rosters the record prints
Behind them, the yearbook captains: Kenny Gerard (1923), Roy Horstmann (1928, in the 1929 Miskodeed ), the fullback Ronzone (1929 captain in the 1930 volume), and Bortone and Asher, co-captains of 1962.
- 1924Martha's Midway Tavern, 810 West Fourth Street: a century in one family's hands
The purchase and the lunch counter: In 1924 Martha and Cyriel Antheunes, Belgian immigrants, bought the frame building at 810 West Fourth Street — the address where the 1921 directory had listed Alphonse Audenaert's soft-drink stand — and opened it as a lunch counter under the name Midway Lunch .
- 1924–1933Martha's Midway Tavern and the Antheunes
Martha and Cyriel Antheunes bought the Midway in 1924 and ran it as "Midway Lunch" — chicken dinners, soda, cigars, near-beer — while, by the house's own history, bootlegging beer and whiskey out of the garage.
- 1924–todayThe middle years: Main Junior High, Battell Junior High, and John Young
Main Junior High: When the high school moved east in 1924, its 1911 building on Lincolnway West became Main Junior High School, holding grades seven and eight for roughly fifty years.
- 1924–todayThe Venues: Every Ground, With Its Teams
The Cave (Mishawaka Cavemen, basketball): The gymnasium of the present Mishawaka High School, the building that opened in 1924 on Lincolnway East — the Cavemen have played in The Cave since 1924, and the Tribune's accounting calls it Indiana's oldest active high school gymnasium.
- 1925The Tivoli: the theater the city bought, protected, and demolished
The palace: The Tivoli opened on 21 May 1925 at 208 North Main Street, built in 1924–25 to the design of Chicago architect E. P. Rupert — a Spanish Colonial Revival picture palace and vaudeville house, the largest theater Mishawaka ever had.
- 1925–1940The mechanization curve, part one: the rise, 1925–1940
Tractors rose from 287 to 1,063 — a 3.7-fold increase in fifteen years — while the farm count itself barely moved (2,392 farms in 1925; the county's mid-century farm counts stand in Farms & Crops, at pointer here).
- 1925–1949The boot men: Ferrettie, Van Dinter, and the form-fitting boot
Gino Vannoni of Mishawaka, No. 1,546,955, "Heel-forming mold," of 21 July 1925, at residence strength — a mold-maker's patent, the tooling side of the heel trade.
- 1925–1950The arrival count: tractors on farms, St. Joseph County, 1925–1950
In 1925, the Census of Agriculture's Indiana county tables (County Table II, Farm Values, Mortgage Debt, and Miscellaneous Items, row 52, "Tractors on farms") give St. Joseph County 287 tractors , against a state total of 23,567; the same spread (row 55) gives the county 2,392 farms…
- 1925–1950George W. Blair: the works' most prolific patentee
The lists and the verified records give him, alone or with partners, forty-nine grants between 1925 and 1954 — footwear designs, the slide-fastener campaign, the floor-covering patents and their court fight, the seat-cushion line, and the sponge-rubber grants that close the subsidiary's own practice…
- 1925–2000The Ancilla years: the hospital inside the sisters' system
In 1925 the Poor Handmaids filed new articles of incorporation in Indiana as Ancilla Domini Sisters, Inc. — Ancilla Domini, the handmaid of the Lord, being the congregation's own Latin name for itself…
- 1925–2007The mural record: palace walls, a fire station, a children's museum
The Tivoli's murals (1925): Mishawaka's grandest mural commission was painted for a movie palace.
- 1926–1998US 20 and McKinley Avenue: the second east–west line
The numbered system gave Mishawaka two east–west highways, and kept them on different streets: US 20 was signed in Indiana from 1926.
- 1926–2006Jordan H. Kapson: The Dealer Fortune, Priced by Its Gift
His age is printed two ways and both stand: the Dealerships file carries his dates as 1926–2006 on its sources, while the memorial calls him 82, which would put his birth in 1923 or 1924.
- 1926–2018Herb Remington: the other steel man
The tie, exactly: Herbert Leroy Remington was born in Mishawaka in 1926 — the date stands in conflict and is printed in conflict: June 9, per his Wikipedia biography and the NAMM oral-history record; July 9, per Indiana Music Makers and SecondHandSongs.
- 1926–2026What survived: a name on the stadium, a stick in the lobby, and no film
The field of 1926 carries the coach of 1924–1932 in its name — Frank M. Steele Stadium, renamed by the school board in 1980 — and its centennial was marked in 2026 with a three-part Tribune series by the stadium's historian, De Kever; the whole course stands in the Sports leg's stadium article.
- 1926–todayThe Greek thread: families and restaurants, a parish across the river
The valley's Greek parish is South Bend's, and Mishawaka's Greeks are a families-and-businesses record: St. Andrew Greek Orthodox Church was founded by forty-five Greek immigrant families who had settled in South Bend, its first Divine Liturgy held 12 September 1926 at 418 West Jefferson Boulevard…
- 1926–todaySteele Stadium — a field from 1926, a stadium from the Depression, a centennial in 2026
The ground: The field at Linden and Gernhart, behind the high school, first opened for football on 18 September 1926, by the school's own athletics history.
- 1927Airmail and the war years: the route that passed, the years that are blank
Airmail: The transcontinental contract airway crossed this valley early — CAM-17, National Air Transport's New York–Chicago leg, awarded 2 April 1927 and in service from 1 September 1927…
- 1927The members' bars: the BK Club's bar, at anchor size
The club is Culture's; its bar stands here: The Broederenkring — the BK Club — at 721 South West Street was founded in 1927 by Belgian immigrants and stands whole in the Culture section: the bolling alleys, the feast calendar, the enclave's surviving institution.
- 1927The BK Club: the Belgians' house, at anchor
The anchor: The Belgian community's club stands whole in the Culture section — the BK Club, the Broederenkring, founded in 1927, the house of the west end's Flemish life — and its course as a community institution is told there and in the Neighborhoods section, and is not repeated here.
- 1927–1978The Twin Branch Railroad: two miles of coal road
The smallest railroad Mishawaka ever had was built to feed a power station: The Twin Branch Railroad was organized in 1927, less than two miles in length, to haul coal from a connection with the New York Central's Elkhart & Western line to Indiana & Michigan Power's generating station on the St. Joseph River on…
- 1927–2016John Brademas: eleven terms, then a university
The tie, exactly: Stephen John Brademas Jr. was born in Mishawaka on March 2, 1927 — a born-here tie, the strongest the record gives.
- 1927–2016Remo Belli: the drumhead under every drummer
The tie, exactly: Remo Delmo Belli was born June 22, 1927, in Mishawaka, and grew up here — in his own words, given to Modern Drummer in March 2016, weeks before his death: "I grew up in Mishawaka, Indiana."
- 1928The bandshell dedicated, 1928
The dedication: Battell Park's bandshell — concrete, limestone, and copper, finished in 1927 after a first bandshell of 1918 — was dedicated on May 28, 1928, three days before Memorial Day, and it was dedicated as a war memorial: the commemorative plaque on its front reads, "Dedicated to those of Mishawaka, Indiana…
- 1928West End Bakery: the Belgian house of 1928
The bakery opened in 1928 and was run by three generations of the Fobe family, Greg Fobe the third, until 2020.
- 1928Gates Chevrolet: the grocer's side business that outlasted downtown
The company's own history says L. O. Gates started his first dealership in 1928 as a side business run out of his grocery store; the South Bend Tribune, writing in 2004, puts the first Gates dealership in Plymouth, Indiana, in 1928, founded by L. O. Gates.
- 1928–1931The slide-fastener campaign, 1928–1931: the works takes on the zipper
It is the slide fastener — the zipper — and between the autumn of 1928 and the end of 1931 the Mishawaka company took out fastener paper at a rate that reads, in the annual lists, like a firm determined to own the closure of the rubber boot.
- 1928–todayThe Dealer Founders
The successions, in one line each: Gates: founded by L. O. Gates at Plymouth in 1928 as a grocer's side business; Mishawaka's Chevrolet store by 1949 with L. O. Gates president; a four-Gates letterhead by 1956 — L. O. president, Rose I. secretary-treasurer, Van E. vice-president, Ned B. general manager…
- 1929The Eberhart-Petro Municipal Golf Course
The city's golf course is named for the two men who gave the city its ground — a Ball Band industrialist and the mayor of his year: The Eberhart-Petro Municipal Golf Course, at 801 North State Street on the river's north side, opened in 1929 with nine holes on the south side of the St. Joe River and expanded to…
- 1929The Tivoli: the talkies, the receivership, and the downtown years
The year 1929 remade the house three ways: another new manager; a minor fire in the foundation of the stage; and the conversion that mattered…
- 1929–1939The 1929 summit — and the silences of the thirties
1929 is the summit of the old series. The Census of Manufactures of 1929 — taken on the eve of the crash, its Indiana volume printing the city's 1930 population as 28,630 — counted 30 establishments in Mishawaka, 5,595 wage earners, and 16,820 primary horsepower, the last horsepower figure the city tables ever print.
- 1929–1962The rubber works' materials: Koylon, the fuel cells, and claims that belong to the parent
Foam rubber — the material the plant sold as Koylon from 1937, on the marker's dating — was invented in 1929 at Dunlop Rubber in Birmingham, England, by E. A. Murphy and Eric Owen, who whipped liquid latex into a froth and vulcanized it; Dunlopillo was its first name, and Murphy's patent file runs to more than forty grants.
- 1929–2013Fire Station No. 4: the house that was a fire station
Built in 1929 at 2319 Lincolnway East, on Lot 22 of the Brookside Addition at South Brook Avenue, it was designed by the South Bend firm of Freyermuth & Maurer in what its nomination calls "a blend of simple Tudor Revival and English Cottage details"…
- 1929–2014The mint trade's course after Mishawaka: the center moves, then the country
The United States Department of Agriculture's Farmers' Bulletin on peppermint and spearmint as farm crops (February 1929) places the industry's center exactly where the 1906 report left it: mint culture "centralized in Indiana, Michigan, western Oregon and Washington," the Michigan and Indiana muck lands the…