The directory houses: the long tail, recovered — and what it holds for Osceola

1884–1917 AND THE DIRECTORY RUN · OSCEOLA FIRST

Hotels that exist only in directories are still hotels, so the directory record for the town was run as its own article — and for Osceola the long tail is a shown negative, printed with its evidence so it can be weighed. The banked businesses fragment transcribes the town's two gazetteer censuses whole. Polk's Indiana State Gazetteer for 1884–85 (vol. III, p. 570) prints the Osceola entry firm by firm: Baker, blacksmith; Bancroft, saw and flour mill; Brubaker, blacksmith; Curtis, justice of the peace; Dills, carpenter; Holben, carpenter; Lamport & Buck, general store; Mandlin, saw mill; Newsbaum, livestock; Pierce, physician; Smith, grain dealer and railroad agent — eleven firms, no hotel, no eating house, no lodging line of any kind, with "Elkhart or Mishawaka are the banking towns" for the entry's closer. Polk for 1916–17 prints five firms — Carroll, grocer; Crull Bros., general store and implements; Crystal Springs Creamery Co.; Curtis, grocer; Laughlin, hardware — population 250, banking point Mishawaka, and again no hotel. Between and around those dated censuses, the present-day commerce the same fragment seats names no hotel or motel either. That is the directory long tail for this town across a century and a third: not a thin tail but an empty one, recovered decade by decade at the strength the gazetteer record allows, and printed as an empty tail rather than inflated with the county's houses. The boundary's directory houses — the houses that exist in South Bend's directories between the grand ones — are carried where the checklist puts them, in the grand-houses and succession articles (art-69-3, art-69-4, art-69-6, art-69-10); this article's subject is the town, and the town's directory record is complete at zero.

Sources: Polk's Indiana State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1884–85 (vol. III, p. 570) and 1916–17, Osceola entries transcribed whole in the banked businesses fragment; banked businesses fragment, present commerce roll.