The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1839 — 2014
The positive, restated at its size: Mishawaka's distilling record opens with the strongest early claim in either city's build: John Wagner operated a distillery in the town from 1839, on the city history's record, beside his brewery — a still running in the iron-works town when South Bend had no maker of any kind. De Kever's 1840s manufacturers' list corroborates the trade's presence without the name: "a distillery" among the town's industries. What Wagner distilled, in what quantity, and when the still stopped, no source reached says; the census-of-manufactures schedules and revenue registers that would settle it are named in the first entry of this section, and the distillery is not inflated beyond its two sentences anywhere in this section.
The distinctions, kept: A distiller makes spirits; a rectifier blends and re-distills bought spirits; a wholesale liquor house sells what others make; a saloon pours it. The searches below separate the four, because a "liquors" dealer in a gazetteer is evidence of the trade, not of a still. Merrifield's 1859 inventory names a brewery and no distillery. The Polk gazetteers of 1880–81 and 1884–85, read first-hand for the Bars leg, enter Mishawaka's drink trade man by man — the saloon keepers, the hotels, one dealer under "liquors" in the earlier edition whose name the digitized text garbles — and carry no distiller, no rectifier, and no wholesale-liquor heading in either edition; the brewery stands as "Kamm & Schellinger, brewers," the town's one maker. The 1921 city directory, read first-hand, puts the same company under Soft Drink Manufacturers in the dry year and no distiller anywhere — a negative the dry law makes expected, printed as such and given no more weight than it can bear.
The negative, with its span printed: Between Wagner's still and the vodka makers of the twenty-first century, the record searched for this section holds no distillery, rectifier, or wholesale liquor house seated in Mishawaka — a searched negative spanning 1859 to 2014, bounded by its instruments: Merrifield's 1859 inventory; the state gazetteers of 1880–81 and 1884–85; the city directory of 1921; the city history's whole text, in which the word distillery belongs to Wagner alone; and the trade and state lists of the modern sweep in the next entry. The negative is a finding about the record reached, not about the ground: the federal Internal Revenue registers at the National Archives and the undigitized directory and license record at the public library would settle the question year by year, and they are named here so the negative can be overturned by evidence rather than repeated as fact. The stills of the dry years — the moonshine record of raids and seizures — are enforcement history, and they stand in the Crime section; a raided still is a crime record, not a distillery, and this section does not count them as makers.
Sources:
- Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — Wagner's distillery from 1839; the 1840s list's "a distillery"; Merrifield's 1859 inventory (a brewery, no distillery); the history's whole text searched for this section.
- R. L. Polk & Co., Indiana State Gazetteers, 1880–81 and 1884–85, Mishawaka listings, read first-hand for the Bars & Nightclubs leg — saloon keepers and hotels named; one dealer under "liquors" (1880–81, name garbled in the digitized text); no distiller, rectifier or wholesale heading in either edition.
- Polk's Mishawaka City Directory, 1921, read first-hand — the brewery under Soft Drink Manufacturers; no distiller entered.