The jitney test, run whole

1913–1927 · THE TEST AND ITS ONE CASE

The frame: the jitney — the automobile run as an unfranchised streetcar, taking nickels for rides along the rails' own routes — was the street railway's first motor competition across the country in 1913–1917, and the Northern Indiana Railway met it here. The railway's own standard history keeps the fight in its table of contents: the Central Electric Railfans' Association's Bulletin 132, Northern Indiana Railway (1998), carries a chapter section "1913–1917, Storms – Jitney Buses – Track Extensions – New Streetcars," followed by the 1917 strike and "1923 – The Motor Bus Appears." The bulletin was not reachable in full text in the founding pass or in this one, and it remains the named settler for the street-level Mishawaka account.

The found record, at its size: one Mishawaka jitney stands in the reported law of the state. In Sprout v. City of South Bend, 198 Ind. 563, 153 N.E. 504 (Ind. 1926; rehearing denied December 16, 1926), Otis Sprout, a resident of Mishawaka, operated a jitney bus carrying passengers between South Bend and Niles, Michigan, and was prosecuted by South Bend for running it without the liability insurance and license the city's ordinances required. South Bend Ordinance No. 2135, adopted January 12, 1921, declared every motor or electric vehicle operated on the city's streets "for the purposes of affording a means of local street or highway transportation by indiscriminately accepting and discharging such persons as may offer themselves for transportation" a commercial vehicle "commonly known as a jitney bus" — taxicabs and hotel buses excepted — and required a liability insurance contract filed with the city controller. The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the ordinances. The boundary is exact: the ordinance, the prosecution and the curb being policed were South Bend's; what is Mishawaka's in the case is the operator's residence and the intercity route — a Mishawaka man running a for-hire car through both cities' streets, Mishawaka lying on his road.

The verdict: the test is run and its yield is one case, not a trade. No Mishawaka jitney ordinance, license list or jitney company was found in the records searched — the searches run in November 2026 covered the jitney in connection with Mishawaka and the Northern Indiana Railway in the legal and railfan records and the press of record's digitized runs — and none is invented. The settling sources for any fuller account are named: CERA Bulletin 132's jitney chapter for the railway's side, and the Mishawaka Enterprise and city council record of 1913–1921 for the city's side, should either show the trade at more than one man's size.

Sources:

1. Sprout v. City of South Bend, 198 Ind. 563, 153 N.E. 504 (Ind. 1926) (Otis Sprout of Mishawaka; Ordinance No. 2135, adopted January 12, 1921, quoted).
2. Central Electric Railfans' Association, Bulletin 132, Northern Indiana Railway (1998), contents ("1913–1917, Storms – Jitney Buses – Track Extensions – New Streetcars," p. 38) — named as settler.
3. Public Transit, founding fragment (EXPAND-TRANSIT-NOTE: Bulletin 132 unreachable in the base pass).