License Branch: Not Found and Still Open

THE RECORD AS IT STANDS · NOVEMBER 2026

What this section could not settle is named, with the source that settles each item, so no gap here is silent:

Settled — the DF-29 seat conflict. The Osceola depth audit's DF-29 found the South Bend branch seated two ways in the printed record (623 South St. Joseph Street; 1139 East Ireland Road, one directory marking Ireland Road closed). Settled in this running on the Bureau's own current branch record: Ireland Road is the sole current seat; St. Joseph Street is the documented former seat (Bureau release, October 27, 2014; Bureau notice, February 16, 2021). Osceola prints the pointer; this running owns the succession, printed whole in the seats article.

GAP-SB-BMV-1 — The branch's opening and its seats before 1949. The directory record reached opens in 1949 at 530 South Michigan Street. The branch's opening year as a standing office, any seat of the 1920s–40s, and the automobile department's first fixed counter for this county are not in the record reached. Settlers: the Tribune and News-Times files of the 1920s–40s; the Secretary of State's automobile department reports; the Polk directories of the 1920s–40s (the 1921 directory carries no license listing, read).

GAP-SB-BMV-2 — The two modern moves, dated. The branch stood at 333 South Michigan Street in 1987 and at 623 South St. Joseph Street by October 2014; it stood at St. Joseph Street in February 2021 and at 1139 East Ireland Road in the Bureau's current record. Neither move is dated by any record reached; the first falls in the directory record's 1988–2014 silence, in which the uncorroborated directory claim of a seat at 3702 East Jefferson Boulevard (dmvchangeofaddress.com, no corroborating record of any era) also falls. Settlers: the Polk and Bresser's directories of 1988–2014 (St. Joseph County Public Library); the Bureau's relocation releases and annual reports; the Tribune's files.

GAP-SB-BMV-3 — The current branch manager. The directories name this branch's holders through 1987 (Jeanette K. Moeller, the last); no public listing, announcement or press item reached names a state-era manager of the South Bend branch, and the Bureau's public listings name the Commissioner only. The depth standard's current holder therefore stands as a gap, not a guess. Settlers: the Bureau's own announcements; the Tribune; a live check of the Bureau's branch administration — assigned to the audit that follows this package.

GAP-SB-BMV-4 — Three managers' surnames, and the chairmen behind the roster. The digitized 1956 and 1963 directories leave three surnames illegible: the office manager of 1956 (Mrs. Mildred M. ——), and the manager (Mrs. Rowena W. ——) and office manager (Mrs. Alice M. ——) of 1963. Settlers: the printed directories themselves (St. Joseph County Public Library, local history), read on paper. Behind the whole roster stands the county gap's surviving share: the St. Joseph County chairmen who made the appointments, administration by administration, are named in no record reached; the same gap stands for the county's other branches in the Granger (GAP-BMV-2), Osceola (GAP-O10-BMV-2), Walkerton (GAP-W10-BMV-2) and New Carlisle (GAP-NC7-BMV-2) runnings. Settlers: the Tribune and News-Times files; the BMV Commission's minutes and appointment records.

GAP-SB-BMV-5 — The 117 West Mishawaka Avenue office, 1963. The 1963 Polk street guide prints a "City Auto License Bur" at 117 W. Mishawaka Ave, telephone BLackburn 5-2625, in the same directory that seats the State bureau at 214 S. Lafayette Blvd. What the office was is undetermined. Settlers: the printed 1963 directory read whole around the entry; the Tribune's plate-season coverage of 1962–64; the city's own records, if the office was a city one.

GAP-SB-BMV-6 — The 1950 plate codes. The plate-history record gives St. Joseph County's 1950 two-letter codes as BB–BH; the ShopLicensePlates key prints BB–BK and BN. Printed whole in the plate article, unharmonized — DF-29's second conflict, a county gap carried jointly by all the county's runnings. Settlers: surviving 1950-issue plates; the Bureau's issuance records.

GAP-SB-BMV-7 — First registrations and first licenses at documented size. The county's plate-allocation ceilings (69,993 under the 1950 scheme; 239,976 under the 1963 scheme) are printed from the plate-history record; actual registration counts for the county — and any first-registration or first-license count for the city — stand in records not reached. Settlers: the Secretary of State's annual reports (registrations by county); the Bureau's annual reports.

GAP-SB-BMV-8 — The automobile association's counters. Whether the Hoosier State Automobile Association's plate-issuing service ever operated a counter in St. Joseph County in the 1920s is not settled by the record reached; the 1921 Kokomo Tribune account documents the plan, not a county seat. Settlers: the association's records; the Tribune's 1920s files.

Leads passed to Mishawaka's package (not this branch's roster). Two directory manager lines stand unattributed in the metropolitan directories: a "mgr State Auto License Bur" residing in Mishawaka (Polk, 1976), and "Haak Delores, br mgr State Auto License Bur" (Polk, 1978), neither with a seat named.

Tested negative — a separate testing station; GAP-SB-BMV-9 — the early examination course. No record reached seats a driver-examination station inside the city in any era apart from the branch itself; examinations are and were branch services. Searched: the Bureau's record and the directories named above. Who examined this county's first drivers, and where, in the years before the examinations folded into the branches, is not in the record reached. Settlers: the Bureau's early records; the Indiana State Police's records; the press of record.