Ball-Band Rubber Company-Mishawaka
Mishawaka was the home of Ball-Band footwear-the footwear that made the Red Ball trademark famous. Any study of social and economic life in Mishawaka is incomplete without a knowledge of the start, growth, and the policies that made the name “Mishawaka” known to millions of people.
According to local newspapers, it was in about 1838 that a woolen mill was first established in Mishawaka. After a series of hardships and some success, Jacob Beiger and his son, Martin V. Beiger, purchased this woolen mill in 1867. In 1874, they incorporated the Mishawaka Woolen Manufacturing Company as a stock company. The company employed 25 people and produced flannels and yarn.
In 1886, Martin V. Beiger and Adolphus Eberhart, the two principal members of the firm, invented the all-knit boot. From the start, the knit boot was such an outstanding success that the firm discontinued manufacturing flannels and yarn.
The knit boot had a black band around the top. In 1891, someone added the red ball to the band, and they registered it as a trademark in 1901. The Red Ball on the black band naturally suggested the name “BALL-BAND,” and they also registered this name in 1901.
The company introduced Lumbermen (heavy-duty work boots) to the line in 1899 and felt boots in 1895. Because workers wore these wool boots and socks with rubber boots and shoes, the company produced its own rubber footwear. In February 1898, the company built a rubber footwear plant and produced the first Ball-Band rubber shoes. They added light rubber footwear in 1916, leather work shoes in 1917, and canvas sport shoes (tennis shoes–produced with the name Red Ball Jets) in 1922. In 1924, the company’s name changed to the Mishawaka Rubber and Woolen Manufacturing Company. Since they had discontinued the manufacture of woolen products, they changed the name again to the Mishawaka Rubber Company, Inc., in March 1958.
Red-Ball Jets tennis shoe (created before Converse’s Chuck Taylors).
From the start, all Ball-Band products had been quality products. Ball-Band products had never followed the motto, “Good enough will do;”. Because of this honest reliability, everyone recognized the red ball’s fame, which had spread everywhere, as a standard of excellence in footwear.
In over half a century, the Ball-Band plant had grown from one small building with a handful of employees to one of the largest rubber footwear plants in the world. The plant encompassed over 40 acres of floor space and employed approximately 5,000 wage and salary personnel.
For more information about historical Mishawaka, visit: Mishawaka Museum | The Princess City
