Public art: the general, the steel, and the alley walls

1918–today

The monument era: Fort Wayne's first great piece of public art was a monument. Griswold's 1917 history tells the commission: the work was first awarded to Chicago sculptor Charles E. Mulligan, whose sudden death revised the plans; George E. Ganiere of Chicago was selected, at $15,000 for the bronze and $900 for two tablets, by a commission that included Mrs. Frances Haberly-Robertson. The equestrian statue of General Anthony Wayne was dedicated on July 4, 1918, in Hayden Park, greeting travelers at the city's Lincoln Highway entrance (ACPL's dedication photographs are captioned 1917; the date is unsettled in the sources and is flagged in this section's note). In 1973 the statue was moved to the new Freimann Square; the brass bas-relief plaques of Little Turtle and Tecumseh from its original base were salvaged and hang today outside the genealogy department of the downtown library. In November 2014 the statue was rededicated after a conservation funded by a $125,000 gift from the Allen County Courthouse Preservation Trust, the bronze laser-cleaned back to its historic patina. Freimann Square pairs the general with the modern: Mark di Suvero's steel sculpture Helmholtz, on loan to the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, anchors the square's other end. At Headwaters Park stands Hector Garcia's statue of Little Turtle — Garcia's profile is in Notable People — and Tim Parsley's bison mural marks The Landing; the places themselves are carried in Famous Landmarks.

The mural era: Downtown's street-art era began, by Input Fort Wayne's account, in 2014, when Philadelphia artist Yis Goodwin (Nosego) was commissioned in the alley beside 816 Pint and Slice. Art This Way, founded and organized by artist Alexandra Hall, began as the Alleyway Activation Mural Project and became an official public art program of the Fort Wayne Downtown Improvement District in 2017 — commissioning murals on private walls, three the first year and four larger ones in 2018, more than twenty by 2020, funded largely by its annual Art Crawl. In September 2020 the region scaled the idea up: the Make It Your Own Mural Fest, developed by the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership with Arts United and Hall as consultant, put eleven permanent murals in eleven northeast Indiana communities in ten days. The city's own Public Art Commission followed, its guidelines written with Hall on the steering committee; and since 2021 Art This Way and City Utilities have run Clean Drains Fort Wayne — Be River SmART — which by 2025 had turned more than 130 storm drains into small murals carrying one message: only rain in the drain.

Sources:

1. Griswold, Pictorial History of Fort Wayne (1917), via ACGSI — the Wayne monument commission, Mulligan and Ganiere, the $15,000 and $900; ACGSI, Anthony Wayne Statue page — the Hayden Park dedication and the 1973 move, the salvaged plaques, the 1917/1918 caption conflict.
2. Around Fort Wayne (November 2014) — the rededication, the $125,000 Courthouse Preservation Trust gift, the laser conservation; List of parks in Fort Wayne — Helmholtz on loan to the Museum of Art.
3. Input Fort Wayne, "Art This Way: How street art is taking over downtown Fort Wayne" (2019) and "Make It Your Own Mural Fest" (2020) — the 2014 Nosego mural, the program's 2017 start, the mural counts, the 2020 festival; City of Fort Wayne (August 2025) — Clean Drains, 130-plus drain murals since 2021.