The Associates' departure — an interval, printed unreconciled

1976 against 1979 · the banked gaps entry's open item

Two carriers, two dates: The Business Gaps record closed the Story of South Bend section's open item on the Associates Corporation — the consumer-finance house incorporated in Indiana in 1918 that grew into the country's fourth-largest auto finance company — and left its departure from South Bend bounded only by an interval: a Baker Library chronology, as filed in a federal trademark proceeding, still placed the executive offices in South Bend in 1979. This pass adds the other end's carrier. A sourced history of the Las Colinas development in Texas records that "in January 1976, The Associates North America closed on a site in Wingren Office Park, and before the year was out, opened its new headquarters — the first office facility built in Las Colinas," and states flatly that "the Associates moved its headquarters from South Bend, Indiana."

Printed as they stand: A phased removal would reconcile the two — a new headquarters opened in Texas in 1976 while executive offices remained in South Bend into 1979 — but no carrier reached says so, and the reconciliation is not asserted. The departure stands as the record gives it: a Texas headquarters opened in 1976 on one sourced account, a South Bend executive office still documented in 1979 on another, and the company's later course — Gulf+Western, the 1989 Ford purchase, the Citigroup acquisition that closed 30 November 2000 — in the gaps record where it belongs.

Sources:

1. Las Colinas development history (kellymcclain.me) — the January 1976 site closing in Wingren Office Park; the headquarters opened before the year was out, the first office facility built in Las Colinas; "the Associates moved its headquarters from South Bend, Indiana."
2. Baker Library chronology, as filed in a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proceeding — the executive offices in South Bend in 1979; the gaps record's interval floor, cross-referenced.