The interurban through Mishawaka: to Elkhart and Goshen, 1898-1934

1898-1934 · THE GOSHEN LINE

The building: The interurban came to Mishawaka from the east end of its own street-railway family. In September 1898 the owners of the South Bend & Mishawaka street lines, Arthur Kennedy and Frances J. Torrence of Pittsburgh, bought the stock of the Indiana Electric Railway Company of Elkhart and took possession early in October; the connecting construction was pushed rapidly forward. A new company, the South Bend and Elkhart Railway, capitalized at $100,000, built the Mishawaka-Elkhart link: Marlette's case history dates its opening to 12 December 1898, eleven miles, hourly passenger service, ten passenger cars and one service car. Nine days later, on 21 December 1898, the first car was run from Elkhart to Goshen, on the account Abraham Weaver printed in his 1916 history of Elkhart County. Through cars could then run the whole South Bend-Goshen course — 26 miles by the system's later tabulation — through Mishawaka and Osceola to Elkhart and Goshen, and on 15 March 1899 the South Bend and Elkhart Railway was merged with the street lines into the Indiana Railway Company. One conflict stands between the two standard histories and is printed whole: the CERA history of 1960 narrates the connection as completed later — Elkhart and Goshen connected by 1898, and Mishawaka and Elkhart in August 1899, completing the through line between South Bend and Goshen. Marlette's company record, with its dated opening, its mileage and its car count, is the more particular account; the CERA narrative may date the through service rather than the segment, but neither source says so, and both dates stand here as printed.

The course through the city: The interurban entered Mishawaka from South Bend, stopped at the passenger terminal at Fourth and Main, and left the city eastward on Lincolnway — the alignment the National Register record preserves for the Lincolnway East corridor, where the 1929 fire station's foyer served the line as a waiting station. On the Northern Indiana's own system map the line through Mishawaka is labeled the Goshen Line. At its maturity the service was a genuine railroad in miniature: Marlette's tabulation of the Chicago, South Bend & Northern Indiana's 1917 passenger service gives 17 round trips a day, hourly, between South Bend and Goshen — every one of them through Mishawaka — beside nine round trips, two-hourly, to Michigan City. At Goshen the cars met the Winona Interurban Railway for Warsaw and Peru, a connection that made Mishawaka, for three decades, a point on a through electric network reaching most of northern Indiana. The South Shore Line, the region's other famous interurban, never entered Mishawaka at all: its story, from the revenue service that reached South Bend on 1 July 1908 to Insull's purchase in 1925, is South Bend's at the station level and is carried in that city's record.

The end: The interurban died with the Depression-era system, and its abandonment is the record's most contested date, printed here in all its forms. Marlette's company history of the Northern Indiana Railway, Inc. states that all rail lines except South Bend and Mishawaka were abandoned 31 May 1934. The CERA history states that abandonment of the interurban lines was ordered for 2 June 1934 and actually occurred the morning of 1 June, when a strike took place; the published contents of the CERA's own later bulletin title the event the South Bend end of interurban service, 1 June 1934; and the same 1960 volume's Elkhart section dates the discontinuance of Elkhart's whole operation to the abandonment of the interurban to South Bend on 2 June 1934. The strike morning of 1 June, with the order's date of 2 June and Marlette's 31 May printed beside it, is the fullest statement the record supports: the Goshen run, and with it Mishawaka's interurban service, ended at the turn of June 1934. At Goshen the ending severed the Winona connection, whose own mainline passenger service ended the same year; the city streetcars of South Bend and Mishawaka, alone of the system, ran on.

Sources:

1. Jerry Marlette, Electric Railroads of Indiana (1959) — the South Bend and Elkhart Railway: original company, $100,000, opened 12 December 1898, Mishawaka-Elkhart 11 miles, hourly service, 11 cars in 1899, merged into the Indiana Railway Company 15 March 1899; the Chicago, South Bend & Northern Indiana's 1917 service, 17 round trips daily South Bend-Goshen; the Northern Indiana Railway, Inc.'s abandonment of all lines except South Bend and Mishawaka, 31 May 1934 (conflict printed in the entry).
2. Abraham Weaver, A Standard History of Elkhart County (1916) — Kennedy and Torrence's purchase of the Indiana Electric Railway stock in September 1898 and possession in October; the first car from Elkhart to Goshen, 21 December 1898.
3. Central Electric Railfans' Association, Electric Railways of Indiana (Bulletin 104, 1960) — Mishawaka and Elkhart connected August 1899 completing the through line (conflict printed in the entry); abandonment ordered for 2 June 1934, occurring the morning of 1 June on a strike; the Elkhart discontinuance dated 2 June 1934; the system map's Goshen Line through Mishawaka.
4. George K. Bradley, Northern Indiana Railway Inc., CERA Bulletin 132 (1998), published contents — the section titled "South Bend End of Interurban Service, June 1, 1934."