Mishawaka Historical Museum

08/30/2026

Our thanks to Matt Emery for producing this episode about Mishawaka's own Elizabeth Ann Richardson.

🚨NEW EPISODE ALERT🚨

The Footlocker That Came Home

In 1944, Mishawaka’s Elizabeth Richardson left home to serve overseas during WWII. She never returned.

More than 80 years later, her footlocker did.

Historian Pete DeKever joins me for the incredible story of its journey from wartime Europe to a creek in California…and finally back home to Mishawaka.

A remarkable piece of local history.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts! Or at any of the episode links in the comments below ⬇️

Mishawaka Historical Museum

08/28/2026

For the past several years, Pete De Kever has taught a Mishawaka history class at Forever Learning Institute. For the fall semester, which begins the week of September 14, he will again teach the class, which is on Wednesdays from 10:20 to 11:10 a.m. at Little Flower Catholic Church in South Bend. The class meets for 10 weeks. Registration costs $60. To sign up for this class and others, visit www.ForeverLearningInstitute.org or call (574) 282-1901.

Education and life-long learning for senior adults. Volunteer instructors teach classes.

08/24/2026

Our thanks to InRugCo for making postcards that honor the 100th anniversary season of Steele Stadium. The first game played there was on September 18, 1926, against Lowell. The postcards use the design from the t-shirt that recently went on sale. We encourage you to visit the store at 220 East Mishawaka Avenue to buy some postcards and send them to fellow members of Caveman Nation. Share your memories of one of Indiana's most storied high school sports venues.

08/15/2026

August 15 is the 100th anniversary of the cornerstone-laying for St. Monica Church. In 1925, Rev. John Kohl, St. Monica’s pastor, bought three lots along the 200 block of West Mishawaka Avenue. Two lots would be used for a new church at the corner of Ann Street, and the other would be for a rectory. Chicago architect Herman J. Gaul’s designs included an Italian Romanesque building covered with dark red brick and Bedford limestone trim and accents. The church would be 160’ long and 69’ wide, and a 103’ bell tower would rise above Ann Street. Kuehn & Jordan Construction Company was the general contractor. Groundbreaking occurred in May 1926. The church’s cornerstone-laying ceremony was held on Sunday, August 15. Rt. Rev. John Noll, bishop of the Fort Wayne Diocese, officiated at the event. The short procession from the rectory on Grove Street to Ann Street was led by Gordon Holmes, church organist, bearing a crucifix, followed by two altar servers. When Bishop Noll arrived at the construction site, he went to where the altar would be located, as marked by a cross, and blessed that site. Noll then blessed the walls and the cornerstone. Before the cornerstone was put into place, the clergy chanted the litany of the saints, and Bishop Noll set various church-related documents in a copper box and put it inside the cornerstone. On the cornerstone were a Latin inscription that translates as “This church was erected during the time when the Rt. Rev. John F. Noll, D.D., was bishop of Fort Wayne and Rev. John F. Kohl was parish priest” and “Aug. 15 A.D. 1926.” The new St. Monica Church was dedicated on October 2, 1927. This architectural masterpiece has stood the test of time and still serves the parish’s needs almost a century later.

08/12/2026

Please join us for a walking tour of Beutter Park, Ironworks Plaza, and historic Battell Park this Friday, August 14, from 9:30-11 a.m. The tour will start at the Ball-Band Biergarten and is open to everyone, free of charge. Pete De Kever will be the guide for this tour.

08/10/2026

August 10 is the 140th anniversary of one of the most important events in the history of Mishawaka industry. On this date in 1886, Mrs. Anna Beiger, the mother of Mishawaka Woolen Company president Martin Beiger, knit the company's first woolen boot, which would become the prototype for the patented All-Knit Boot in 1887. Martin considered this hand-knit first boot to be one of his most prized possessions, and he penned the note attached to the boot. This boot was the first of hundreds of millions of pieces of footwear made in Mishawaka until production ceased in 1969. The framed first boot remained in the Ball-Band archives for decades and was later on display at the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library, which donated the boot to the Mishawaka Historical Museum in 2023. We are proud to have this Mishawaka treasure for our visitors to see.

08/07/2026

September 18 will be the 100th anniversary of the first game played at what is now Steele Stadium. To celebrate Steele Stadium turning 100, InRugCo Studio and Gift Shop (220 East Mishawaka Avenue) and the Mishawaka Historical Museum partnered to design a special commemorative t-shirt. Caveman Nation, you don't need to wait until September to get your shirt. InRugCo has them now! Show your Steele Stadium and Mishawaka High pride with one of these great t-shirts. While at InRugCo, pick up two more Mishawaka history products that we helped create: a Hotel Mishawaka replica keychain and a two-sided Ball-Band coaster. Both of these products are modeled after artifacts now on display at the museum. Our thanks to InRugCo for continuing to make Mishawaka-themed shirts and other products.

08/04/2026

The Mishawaka High boys basketball team won the 1927 regional, which was held at the Notre Dame Gymnasium, later known as the Old Fieldhouse. Coach Shelby Shake’s Mishawakans coasted to a 26-15 victory over New Paris and then clobbered Kewanna, 38-15, to punch their ticket to the Sweet Sixteen state finals. The cornerstone for Notre Dame’s second gymnasium was laid in 1898. It burned down in 1900 and was replaced the following year. The cornerstone was reused in the new fieldhouse, which was primarily an indoor track facility, but its clay surface could also be used for basketball games. Lacking a wooden floor, the fieldhouse was no longer suitable for basketball games by the early 1920s, so the university decided to add a 5,000-seat gymnasium to the east end of the fieldhouse. Notre Dame played its first basketball game in the new gymnasium on December 7, 1925, and hosted the 1926 high school regional three months later. The following year, the gymnasium was again the regional venue. In the 1927 title tilt, an estimated 4,000 fans were on hand, which was the largest crowd, up to that time, ever to witness a Mishawaka High basketball game. Notre Dame played its home basketball games in the Old Fieldhouse until the A.C.C. opened in 1968. The Old Fieldhouse was razed in 1983, and the area became a pedestrian mall. The nearby Notre Dame Fieldhouse monument consists of a limestone base and the 1898 cornerstone, yellow bricks from the old building, and a concrete cap. A couple hundred feet to the east, two diagonal sidewalks intersect in a plaza at approximately the site of the Notre Dame Gymnasium’s basketball court. It is where the Mishawaka Cavemen earned hardwood glory and a berth in the state finals nearly a century ago.

07/28/2026

It was an exciting afternoon at the Mishawaka Historical Museum. Mayor Dave Wood and three city employees arrived with one of the 15 large Red Ball Jets shoes that are being installed around town as part of Project Shoe City. Our thanks to Mayor Wood, the Mishawaka Youth Advisory Council, the City of Mishawaka, and everyone who donated to this project. We are honored to have one of the shoes in front of the museum. Please stop by, get your picture taken with the shoe, and come inside to learn more about Ball-Band and Red Ball Jets. Thanks to museum volunteer Josh Lange for these photos.