The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1919–PRESENT · SOUTH BEND AND MISHAWAKA (BOUNDARY) · NO MAKER'S HOUSE IN OSCEOLA
Claeys Candy (South Bend). The candy house founded in a garage in 1919 is verified whole: Jerome C. Claeys founded Claeys Candy Inc. in a South Bend garage in 1919 — the Indiana Senate's centennial resolution (2019) fixes the garage on North Blaine Avenue and the first product as handmade candy at five cents; the trade record adds the first named product, Etabar, a caramel nut bar covered with icing. Hard candies became the house's primary line — the Claeys Old Fashioned Hard Candies, horehound among them — with fudge, peanut brittle and the seasonal Chocolate Charlie. The succession is a family succession: Jerome's grandson Gregg Claeys has overseen the company since the 1970s, the third generation, with a fourth in preparation on the centennial record. The house occupied five South Bend production facilities across its century, the latest at 5229 Nimtz Parkway, opened 2022; the Indiana Senate congratulated it on 100 years in 2019, and it holds a Governor's Century Award. It trades still in November 2026.
The licensed chocolate house and Dainty Maid (South Bend). Claeys' own Chocolate Charlie is the record's chocolate name carried at full strength; the row's separate "licensed chocolate house" — a South Bend house making chocolate under licence — was not verified as a distinct firm in the open sources reached, and no name is borrowed for it. Dainty Maid Bake Shop, the bakery the floor instance carries as closed and twice revived, stands in the South Bend record as a long-lived bake shop name; its closing and revival dates were not fixed from open sources at the strength the row requires (each revival dated), and they are not guessed. Macri's (1978). The late ethnic bakery of the floor — Macri's, the Italian house of 1978 — belongs to the Mishawaka–South Bend Italian record (the Macri name stands in Toscana Park's Villa Macri in the Granger/Harris record of this build's neighbouring work); its 1978 founding at first-hand strength was not pulled. The Osceola share of the whole makers' row is a tested negative in brief: no candy house, chocolate house or bakery of any of these patterns seated in Osceola appears in the directory runs or any record reached — the town's one banked maker is Crystal Springs Creamery, a creamery, as the audit itself notes.
Named gap (residue). The Dainty Maid closing/revival dates, the licensed-chocolate house's identity, and Macri's founding record are settled by the directory runs and the Tribune's business pages, house by house. Claeys above is dug whole and needs no settler.
Sources: Indianapolis Business Journal, "Made in Indiana: Claeys Candy" (8 March 2024) — founded in a South Bend garage, 1919; Etabar; Gregg Claeys from the 1970s; five facilities; 5229 Nimtz Parkway, 2022. Indiana Senate Resolution (2019), Claeys centennial — North Blaine Avenue garage; handmade candy; Chocolate Charlie; third-generation Gregg Claeys; Governor's Century Award. Post-Tribune centennial account (2019) — two garages on North Blaine; 525 S. Taylor St. plant; machine transition in the 1970s. Settler named for the residue: Polk directory runs; South Bend Tribune business pages.