The first taverns and the saloon era, in brief

1824 — 1918

Licensed from the start: The first tavern licenses in Allen County were granted on August 10, 1824, to William Suttenfield and Alexander Ewing, each paying $12.50 for the privilege, their houses standing on opposite corners of Barr and Columbia streets — Ewing's house was called Washington Hall. Tavern rates were fixed by the county board, and the young county's government literally met in the taverns: the first meetings of the county commissioners and the circuit court were held in Ewing's and Suttenfield's rooms. The licensed tavern, part inn, part courthouse, part bar, is the city's first nightlife institution, and Columbia Street — the Landing — begins its two-century run as a drinking address in that first season.

The saloon era, pointed to: What the frontier tavern became — the saloon, counted in the hundreds, clustered on Calhoun Street and around the railroad stations, with the gambling rooms and the segregated vice district behind it — is told in full in the Crime section of this history, and only its scale is repeated here: in 1910, in a city of roughly 63,000 people, Fort Wayne counted 197 saloons, 39 of them on Calhoun Street alone. Indiana's legislature passed a statewide prohibition law in February 1917, and Indiana went dry on April 2, 1918, nearly two years before the nation. The speakeasies, roadhouses, stills, and raids of the fourteen dry years — and the brewers Centlivre and Berghoff idled into near beer and soft drinks — are likewise the Crime section's record. One bridge between the eras survives in a single room's own history: the saloon at 1830 South Calhoun Street, opened in 1888, which according to its house account sold soft drinks in the front during Prohibition while other libations were purportedly sold through the infamous back room. That room is still pouring today, and its full run is the next entry's backbone.

Sources:

1. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI), "The First Things in Fort Wayne" — "The First Taverns," from The Fort Wayne News, March 9, 1907: the August 10, 1824 licenses to Suttenfield and Ewing at $12.50 each, the Barr and Columbia corners, and county-fixed tavern rates.
2. ACGSI, 1820–1829 Timeline of Allen County — Ewing's Washington Hall and Suttenfield's tavern, and the first commissioners' and court meetings held in them, copied from the News-Sentinel's Millennium milestones.
3. Crime section of this history — the Calhoun Street vice geography, the 197 saloons of 1910 with 39 on Calhoun Street, Indiana dry on April 2, 1918, and the Prohibition record in full; cross-referenced here, not retold.
4. The Oyster Bar, "About — our history" (fwoysterbar.com) — the 1888 saloon's own account of its soft-drink front and back room during Prohibition, told in full in the next entry.