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1897–2026 · THE DIRECTORY AND CORPORATE RECORD
A firm's chain is its biography in one line — here are the chains this ground's record actually carries, each printed from first form to present holder or end. The hardware-and-bank chain: the Brummitt brothers' hardware store (with a private bank in the back of the building, established spring 1897, A. R. Brummitt cashier) → the firm incorporated in 1903 as the Brummitt Mercantile Company, Mark L. Brummitt president and treasurer, dealing in "coal, lumber, grain, farm implements" and more; and its banking branch: the private bank of 1897 → incorporated 1900 as the First National Bank of New Carlisle (capital $25,000 in the 1916 directory, W. Hubbard president, A. R. Brummitt cashier) → absorbed by a South Bend bank in December 1963, its office continuing as a branch → the town's banking seat today, 1st Source Bank of South Bend at 848 West Michigan Street. The bank was the town's only chartered institution, ever — the chain has one charter in it, and the banks file carries it whole. The steel chain prints in the next article. The elevator chain prints as far as the record carries it and no further: the Farmers Grain Co of the 1916 directory → Zahl's Elevator & Feed Mill, 301 East Michigan Street, the feed trade's present holder in the town's own roll. The pump line of the checklist's example prints at its true size: James W. Miller, pumps, stands in the 1916 directory under a single name with no successor form in the record reached — a chain of one link, printed as one.
Sources:
- Businesses and Banks — the Brummitt and bank chains whole, the 1916 directory forms, the elevator's two dated forms and GAP-NC3-BIZ-3 as carried in the NC-3 note.
- The chain discipline: this section, November 2026 — chains printed only where a carrier dates each link.