Rebuilt Once Already, in 1872
Mishawaka rebuilt itself once already, and the rebuilding shaped a lot of what still stands downtown. A fire in September 1872 wiped out three-quarters of the business district that had grown up since the town's 1833 incorporation (itself a merger of the old St. Joseph Iron Works and three neighboring settlements); the city that came back afterward drew in Dodge Manufacturing, Perkins Windmills, and the Mishawaka Woolen and Rubber Company, later Ball Band and then Uniroyal.
Sharing a River With South Bend
Mishawaka's location on the St. Joseph River puts its older neighborhoods -- many built up during the Ball Band and Dodge Manufacturing years after the 1872 rebuild -- within reach of the same river-driven flooding and heavy regional rain that has affected South Bend just downstream. Storm and snowmelt water damage response in Mishawaka has to account for that shared river system as much as for any single home's own drainage.