Mike Muszar and the Magyar Hall fire — the coroner's index read whole; the question still open

August 18–19, 1917 – November 2026

The Mysteries file carries the fire whole from the South Bend News-Times of August 19, 1917: Magyar Hall, built in 1910 on Chapin Street, burned the night of August 18–19, 1917, at a loss of $15,000, the fire seated at the stage and switchboard on a defective-wiring theory; Mike Muszar, president of one of the Hungarian societies that used the hall, was reported missing, and the search of the ruins was fruitless at press time. The file prints both readings — that he died in the fire, or that he left alive — and adopts neither.

The new work: This pass read, in full, the M segment of the South Bend Area Genealogical Society's published index to the St. Joseph County coroner's records, 1879–1960. There is no Muszar in it, and no near variant — Muzar, Musar, Mussar — anywhere in the segment. The names nearest his in the alphabet are other men: a Maszaros, Stephen, entered for 1929, is a different surname and a different year, and the Muszynski and Muzik entries are Polish names, not his.

What the absence does and does not say: A coroner's inquest under his name would have been evidence of his death; its absence is consistent with his having survived the fire, and equally consistent with a death in it whose remains were never identified or recovered for an inquest — an unidentified body would not be indexed under his name. The coroner's record therefore settles neither reading, and the file continues to carry both. Still unreached, and named: the News-Times and Tribune issues of August 20–31, 1917; the Indiana death index; and a September 1918 draft registration card under his name. One further index route, the Library of Congress's newspaper search, could not be run from this seat.

Sources:

1. South Bend Area Genealogical Society, St. Joseph County Coroner's Records Index 1879–1960, M segment (sbags.org) — read in full, November 10, 2026; no Muszar and no near variant.
2. South Bend News-Times, August 19, 1917 (banked) — the fire and the missing man.
3. Sacred Heart Hungarian Cemetery transcription (banked) — read in full by the Mysteries pass; no Muszar.