Mishawaka, Indiana · 20th century
1950s
28 dated events in 1950s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
20th century 28 dated mentions
1950s
- 1950Ralph S. Gustin: the Distinguished Service Cross at Haman
First Lieutenant Gustin distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action against enemy aggressor forces near Haman, Korea, on 11 August 1950.
- 1950The Rhodes Scholarship: John Brademas, born here
The Rhodes Trust's scholars record, as carried in the Trust's verified roll of scholars, places him in the class of 1950, and New York University's own archival finding aid for his papers states the span plainly: "From 1950 to 1953, he studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University," taking the Doctor of Philosophy…
- 1950Brook Motor Sales: Mishawaka's own Studebaker dealer
The house: South Bend built Studebakers, but Mishawaka bought them from a Mishawaka dealer: Brook Motor Sales Inc, at 916 East McKinley Avenue, which the Studebaker Drivers Club's dealer register dates from 1950 to 1964.
- 1950–1953Korea: two proven, one identified, and the county's forty-three
Counted from that list, St. Joseph County's dead are forty-three — the same forty-three South Bend's pass enumerated — from Private Clinton L. Anderson, killed September 10, 1950, to the last names of 1953.
- 1950–1962Polio: the seat in South Bend, and the clinic record that was not found
Where polio care sat for this county, at boundary size: the state established the Northern Indiana Children's Hospital in 1950 at 1234 North Notre Dame Avenue, South Bend, for children crippled by polio — the seat of this county's polio care, across the city line, as the hospital map of this valley so often was.
- 1951The ground after brewing: no successor, the 100 Center, and the brand that would not come home
The 100 Center's month-by-month state belongs to the Current & Today section; this section closes the ground's story where the making ends: no brewery operates at 100 Center in November 2026, and none has since 1951.
- 1951–1953Korea's other Mishawaka dead: no decoration record reached
The city's other proven Korean War dead, whose deaths stand in the Wars section — Second Lieutenant Edwin F. Tabaczynski of the Air Force, lost 20 August 1951 with his remains not recovered, the city's unaccounted-for of that war; Private First Class Joseph H. Veevaete of the Marine Corps, killed 1 May 1953…
- 1951–1971Red Ball Jets: the shoe a generation grew up in
The launch: In 1951, after more than fifty years of Ball-Band footwear, the company brought out its first "sport shoe" — the revived brand's own history gives the year and the framing, and The Henry Ford's collection dating concurs: the sneakers called Red Ball Jets.
- 19528 May 1952: Mishawaka's one line in the Air Force record
The record: The Air Force's index for 1952 carries one Mishawaka case, and an index line is all of it that the record preserves: "8 May 1952 — Mishawaka, Indiana — INSUFFICIENT DATA."
- 19522 August 1952: a sky watch over Mishawaka's county
In the last week of July 1952, with the Washington, D.C. sightings filling the wires and the heaviest reporting month of the Blue Book era at its peak, the Associated Press carried a South Bend dispatch across the country: "The Air Force and a newspaper appealed to thousands of persons in two states today to spend two…
- 1953–1970The descent: from Willys and Kaiser to the government-products business
Kaiser Industries bought the assets of Willys Motors — the Toledo maker of the wartime Jeep — on 23 March 1953, and the firm that resulted, carried first as Kaiser-Willys, became the Kaiser Jeep Corporation in 1963.
- 1954Daniel L. Gard: the pastor who became an admiral
The tie, exactly: Daniel Lee Gard, born January 29, 1954 — his birthplace is not stated in the sources read, and he is not a born-or-raised Mishawaka figure.
- 1954Across the line: the rescue mission, the homeless center, the food bank and its successor
The rescue mission: Hope Ministries began as Hope Rescue Mission in February 1954, founded by Tobe E. Schmucker under the direction of the Mennonite Board of Missions.
- 1954The advocates: the county's citizens, at Mishawaka's size
The advocacy layer is the county's, and it is seated across the river: The citizens' layer of this record — the layer that inspected, advocated, and educated while the county and the state provided the beds…
- 1955The county home's second life, at Mishawaka's size
The poor farm became a mental-health institution — for this city's residents too: The 1906 infirmary on Portage Prairie, whose relief record stands in Charities, spent its last seven decades as Portage Manor, and from 1955 the law itself assigned the role: the Division of Mental Health could place psychiatric-hospital…
- 1955–1960Remo Belli: the Weather King head, and what "first" the record allows
James V. Erwin, a 3M chemical engineer of St. Paul, Minnesota, was the first to use DuPont's Mylar polyester film as a drumhead, and his Letters Patent No. 2,830,484, for a drum head of thermoplastic polyester sheet, was filed 28 June 1955 and granted 15 April 1958 — before Belli's grant.
- 1955–1976The Countryman's Press: a statewide farm paper published from Mishawaka, 1955–1976
Ayer's directory for that year lists the Countryman's Press: bi-weekly, classed "Ind. Agric." — an Indiana agricultural paper — established 1955, five columns, subscription one dollar, circulation 4,389, edited by Robert A. Rhodes and published by the Cooperative Publishing Company at 116 West Mishawaka Avenue.
- 1955–todayThe Penn boundary: a second district inside the city's school geography
In 1955, Mishawaka High School — its enrollment climbing toward the 1,985 it would reach in 1958 — announced that it would stop accepting Penn Township students from 1959.
- 1956The 1956 canvass: twenty-three names
The trade grown wide and specialized: The directory sample's 1956 canvass prints twenty-three names under Mishawaka's photography headings — twenty-one under "Photographers—Commercial": Ames R. Templeton, Barzilla M. Hutchinson, Camiel C. Mahank, Carl R. Bassler, Carmelo V. Barone, Chas E. Walters, Chas F. Martin Jr.…
- 1956–1969Buddy Emmons: born here, and the pedal steel rebuilt in Tennessee
In late 1956, playing with Little Jimmy Dickens and then Ernest Tubb, Emmons split the function of the two pedals that carried certain strings from a tonic chord to a subdominant into independently workable pedals — the "split pedal," soon the standard arrangement of the E9 tuning, first used on a Tubb session on his own recollection.
- 1957The fiftieth year: 58,325 volumes, Penn Township, and two branches
The count: The library marked fifty years from the City Hall founding with an open house and reception on September 25, 1957, and the nomination, citing the anniversary pamphlet, fixes the institution's size at mid-century: "the library was serving a population of approximately 40,000 (including Penn Township and two…
- 1957–2001The district: Penn Township in 1978, Harris Township in 2001
The expansions were not annexations of empty ground: Penn Township held the city's eastern suburbs and its own school corporation, and its people had been counted in the library's served population since at least the anniversary measure of 1957.
- 1957–2005From the air: the federal series and the unnamed fliers
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Aerial Photography Field Office catalogues its St. Joseph County coverage by program and year — the county's series, at 100 percent coverage each: Farm Service Agency flights of 1957 (1:20,000, black and white), 1965 (1:20,000) and 1973 (1:40,000)…
- 1957–todayQueen of Peace School: opened 1958, closed 1970, reopened 1998
The founding: Queen of Peace parish was established by Bishop Pursley in 1957, on the city's growing south side, and its first chapter is a fact of the web's weave: the parish's first Masses were celebrated at Twin Branch School — a public school, lent to a Catholic parish for its first worship…
- 1958Lisa Germano: the violinist who walked out of the heartland band
The tie, exactly: Lisa Ruth Germano was born June 27, 1958, in Mishawaka, one of six children of Rocco and Betty Germano — both parents music teachers, per Encyclopedia.com…
- 1959The defense decades: missile cases and the last fuel cells
From 1959 the plant made missile components: case insulation and filament-wound motor cases for the Minuteman intercontinental missile and the Navy's Polaris submarine missile, with over six million dollars of tooling in continuous use on three shifts…
- 1959"The largest margin in the city's history" — Canfield, 1959
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 history," the capstone of a career that ran clerk-treasurer, councilman, and three terms as mayor.
- 1959–todayBethel's Pilots — the name, the league, and a national ledger of forty-eight
The name: Bethel's own athletics history records that the nickname Pilots was adopted for the men's basketball team by a vote of the Bethel Student Council on 14 December 1959, and spread to the whole program.