55 articles found by Randy Harter
Date Story
2018-12-09 Citizens Square Block – 1957
Two years after this image was captured, 95% of the entire block had been razed and the new Wolf & Dessauer department store building, now called Citizens Square, had taken its place.
2018-11-15 World War I Memorial Dedication – November 12, 1928
During WW I over 117,000 Americans lost their lives. Here in Indiana 135,000 Hoosiers served in the military and over 100 from Allen County gave the ultimate sacrifice.
2018-11-05 Lakeside Park
In 1890 the Fort Wayne Land Improvement Company held a contest for the naming of a new housing subdivision they were preparing to develop east of the Columbia Street Bridge.
2018-10-05 Fort Wayne Post Office 1889 – 1932
Our city’s first post office was in Hanna & Barnett’s general store at Barr and Columbia Streets. Samuel Hanna, appointed in 1820, was our first postmaster.
2018-09-23 Johnny Appleseed’s Grave
John Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774 and by the time of his birth, apples had been growing on the east coast of the United States for over 150 years.
2018-09-11 Wells Street Bridge – March 1913
In this wonderful image taken during the 1913 Flood, the St. Mary’s River flows under the Wells Street Bridge as it is completing the last of its 99 miles before joining the St. Joseph River to form the Maumee.
2018-08-18 Southeast from Lincoln Tower – 1966
A number of buildings have changed or left us since this image was taken from atop of the Lincoln Tower in 1966.
2018-08-04 “Let’s Elevate The Nickel Plate” – 1954
To the delight of those on the south side of Fort Wayne, the side by side Wabash and Pennsylvania railroad tracks running parallel to Baker Street through downtown were elevated during 1911 - 1913.
2018-07-05 Three Rivers Filtration Plant - 1933
In the mid-1800’s, Fort Wayne’s water supply for both drinking and firefighting came from being pumped from the Wabash & Erie Canal (1843-1874), ponds, creeks, cisterns or wells.
2018-06-14 Wayne Paper Box c. 1953
The photographer of this historic image was standing at the intersection of Columbia and Calhoun looking north down Calhoun to Superior Street.
2018-06-01 What’s in a (street) name?
While the origins of some Fort Wayne street names have been lost to history, others have been recorded and passed down. We’ll take a little hike through the city center, north from Main, south from Main, west from Calhoun and finishing up east from Calhoun to find out what’s in a name.
2018-05-19 Robison Park 1896 – 1919
Construction of the 486 mile-long Wabash & Erie Canal also gave rise to the construction of Robison Park.
2018-04-19 Concordia Lutheran High School – 1984
Public elementary schools were mandated for the first time by the State of Indiana in 1852.
2018-04-07 Canal House
John Brown, stonecutter, mason and merchant of related building supplies, constructed his warehouse at 114 E. Superior Street (which at the time was called Water Street) in 1852.
2018-03-16 Trolley Yard/North Side High School/Centlivre Brewery 1927
As a former “Redskin”, I’ve always especially enjoyed this aerial picture taken in the spring of 1927, just months before North Side High School would open in the fall.
2018-03-02 Grand Leader/Stillman’s circa 1929
John Stillman, of Saginaw, MI, opened his first Fort Wayne Grand Leader department store in rented space on Calhoun across from the Cathedral in 1913.
2018-02-15 Greyhound Bus Depot 1953
Streamline Moderne is the term for describing the style of Art Deco in which our white neon-trimmed Greyhound Bus Depot was designed , one of over 50 depots around the United States created by renowned Louisville, KY architect William S. Arrasmith
2018-02-03 Lutheran Hospital
The Lutheran Hospital Association was organized by area Lutheran congregations in 1903 under the leadership of its director, the Reverend Philip Wambsganss.
2018-01-20 Three Rivers Apartments 1966
While Mayor Harold Zeis (1964-71) gets most of the credit (or blame) for the 1960’s downtown redevelopment, it was Mayor Paul Mike Burns (1960-63) who had commissioned the detailed study of the city’s urban structures and housing…
2017-12-18 Hugh McCulloch House circa 1870
Driving by 616 West Superior Street, you will pass one of Fort Wayne’s oldest extant homes, that of “the father of modern banking,” Hugh McCulloch, who became one of the nation’s leading mid-nineteenth century financial figures and statesman.
2017-12-02 Keenan Hotel 1961
In the spring of 1923, the Journal Gazette touted that not only had the beautiful South Side High School just been completed the previous year, but that currently the city was “a beehive of activity” with four additional million dollar construction projects underway.
2017-11-18 Fairfield Manor 1927
Olaf Nikolaus Guldlin, the president of the Fairfield Manor Realty Co., had been the founder in 1888 of the successful Western Gas Construction Company on Winter Street in Fort Wayne.
2017-11-06 Noll Mansion ca. 1925
Benedict Noll owned two downtown Fort Wayne drug stores in the late 1880’s where in addition to normal offerings he sold a concentrated cough syrup of his own formulation that the consumer mixed at home with sugar syrup or honey before taking.
2017-10-23 Allen County’s Third Courthouse ca. 1880
When people gaze today at our magnificent Allen County Courthouse, which was completed in 1902, it would likely be surprising to many that it’s actually the fourth one that has sat on the Courthouse Square
2017-10-06 The Wayne/Jones/Rosemarie Hotel ca. 1911
Designed by local architect Frank B. Kendrick, and built in 1887 on the site of Dana Columbia’s original 1831 twenty-room Columbia House hotel (for whom Columbia Street is named)…
2017-10-06 The Wayne/Jones/Rosemarie Hotel ca. 1911
Designed by local architect Frank B. Kendrick, and built in 1887 on the site of Dana Columbia’s original 1831 twenty-room Columbia House hotel (for whom Columbia Street is named)…
2017-10-06 The Wayne/Jones/Rosemarie Hotel ca. 1911
Designed by local architect Frank B. Kendrick, and built in 1887 on the site of Dana Columbia’s original 1831 twenty-room Columbia House…
2017-09-15 League Ball Park 1924
This wonderful aerial photograph of League Ball Park was taken by east coast photographer Hamilton Maxwell for the News -Sentinel, and published in their rotogravure section on February 23, 1924.
2017-09-03 Allen County Public Library Block 1918
This 1918 Sanborn Insurance Map of the block bounded by W. Wayne, Webster, W. Washington and Ewing streets today is now given over in its entirely to the main Allen County Public Library (ACPL).
2017-08-03 Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception 1970
In 1831, just a year after the incorporation of the Village of Fort Wayne, the southwest acre of today’s Cathedral Square, formally a Miami Indian burial grounds, was purchased by the then very small local Catholic community for the purpose of building a church.
2017-07-20 Brookside ca. 1940’s
Industrialist John Bass, along with his wife Laura and their two children, lived in a large home at the southeast corner of West Berry and Fairfield Avenues in the late 1800’s…
2017-07-08 East State Village ca. 1960
The roughly eight block long East State Village is made up of approximately 20 commercial properties largely developed during the city’s trolley era in the 1920’s.
2017-06-19 Centlivre Brewery ca. 1940
Charles Lewis Centlivre founded the French Brewery on Spy Run Avenue between the St. Joe River and the Wabash & Erie Feeder Canal in 1
2017-06-05 Baker Street Station 1920
When the Pennsylvania Lines railroad tracks were elevated through downtown Fort Wayne during 1911-1913, the old Pennsy railroad station that sat about at the location of today’s Mikes Carwash on Calhoun was removed.
2017-05-23 City-County Building ca. 1975
Fort Wayne’s original “City Building” is the sandstone Richardsonian Romanesque structure designed by the local architects Wing & Mahurin completed in 1893 at the southeast corner of Barr and Berry…
2017-05-04 Indiana School for Feeble Minded Youth ca. 1900
The history of the Indiana School for Feeble Minded Youth (ISFMY) dates from 1879 when an asylum for “feeble-minded” children was setup at the Soldiers and Sailors Orphans home in Knightstown, IN (east of Indianapolis).
2017-04-21 Indian Village circa 1950
In 1925 the City And Suburban Building Company purchased 180 acres of what had been the Allen County Farm for the Poor and the County Orphanage since 1864.
2017-04-09 Packard Organ and Piano Company ca. 1910
When Isaac T. Packard’s organ factory in Chicago was destroyed in the horrific fire that leveled over three square miles of that city, he relocated the factory to Fort Wayne in October 1871.
2017-03-22 Lincoln Tower ca. 1970
The German-American National Bank was chartered in 1905 on Court Street, the former site of which is now part of the Courthouse Green.
2017-03-06 Allen County War Memorial Coliseum ca. 1952
In 1944 the Fort Wayne Junior Chamber of Commerce (now known as the Jaycees) proposed building a fieldhouse/coliseum as a fitting memorial to the men and women of Allen County who had lost their lives during both world wars.
2017-02-21 Lindenwood Cemetery ca. 1920
The city fathers determined in 1859 that the Broadway or “City” Cemetery which had been developed in 1837 was too small to continue serving the growing community’s needs…
2017-02-03 Wayne Candies ca. 1976
Fort Wayne’s beloved Wayne Candies started life in 1902 as the confections manufacturer Heit-Miller-Lau Company so named after the founders’ three names; Anthony Heit, Joseph Miller and Thomas Lau.
2017-01-24 Central High School circa 1912
Central High School opened in 1904 at 1200 S. Barr between Lewis and Montgomery (now Douglas) Streets.
2017-01-11 Lawton Park, circa 1905
The grounds for what would become Lawton park were purchased in 1864 as a site for the Indiana State Fair, an event that ended up only being held there once, in 1865.
2016-12-15 Reservoir Park June 1916
Fort Wayne celebrated Indiana’s 100th birthday in 1916. As part of the centennial event, the largest temporary construction project in the city’s history was completed at Reservoir Park to host an ambitious historical pageant.
2016-12-02 International Harvester ca. 1930
Few companies would have as much impact on Fort Wayne as Chicago’s International Harvester, which chose our city over 26 others vying for the company’s new heavy-duty truck plant.
2016-11-07 G. C. Murphy’s ca. 1960
From 1890 until 1948, the dark brownstone Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) building sat at the northeast corner of Wayne and Calhoun Streets.
2016-10-24 The Anthony Hotel ca. 1946
The Fort Wayne Hotel Company began construction in of the nine-story, 263-room Anthony hotel in 1905, opening with a celebratory banquet in February of 1908.
2016-10-09 Fort Wayne Public Library ca. 1937
Fort Wayne’s first public library was formed as a reading room by Allen Hamilton’s wife Emerine in 1887 on West Wayne Street which then became a circulating library where you could actually check out books in 1889.
2016-09-15 Wolf & Dessauer Building C. 1964
The above building, which opened in 1959, was the fourth and final home of the Wolf & Dessauer department store in downtown Fort Wayne.
2016-09-02 Berghoff Brewery C. 1930
The Berghoff brothers, Herman, Henry, Hurbert and Gustave arrived in Fort Wayne in the 1870’s and opened the Berghoff Brewery east of town in 1888.
2016-08-23 South Side High School 1923
To ease pressure on the overcrowded Central High School, a tract of land on South Calhoun, just inside the city limits was chosen as the location for the city’s second high school.
2016-08-08 Anthony Wayne in Hayden Park - 1951
This familiar statue of General Anthony Wayne astride his horse was first located here in Hayden Park on Maumee Avenue at Hayden Street…
2016-07-14 Troy Laundry Company ca. 1918
Founded in 1876, the Troy Laundry Company was the city’s first steam laundry and was originally located at 308-314 Pearl Street at the site of today’s Aunt MiIlie’s Bakeries.
2016-06-30 North Side High School – Circa 1928
With the crowding of Central High School downtown, South Side High School was built in 1922, followed by North Side High School rising in 1927 north of town along the east side of the St. Joseph River.
 
 
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