The corridor · East Central, Hanna Street, and the Green Book

1917 – 2026

The community's geography: Black Fort Wayne's institutions stand on the map as on the page — in the East Central neighborhood southeast of downtown and along the Hanna Street corridor that runs through it. The addresses accumulate: the American Legion hall at 1800 South Hanna, where Pilgrim Baptist worshipped in 1923; Post 148's hall at 1815 South Hanna, bought in 1947; the Fort Wayne Urban League at 2135 South Hanna today; Turner Chapel on East Jefferson at the district's edge; the old Wheatley Center on East Wallace; the Micheaux funeral home and the barbershops and beauty shops — John Nuckols's chair among them — of the commercial blocks where the community's businesses clustered because the rest of the city's commerce was closed to them. The employers of record along the corridor were often families: Carl and Mamie Wilson, who came in 1917, ran a pool hall, an exterminating company and Wilson's Chicken Shack diner; Preston Lyons Sr. ran Lyon's Trucking Company from 1920 to 1975, the Douglas Cash Market in the 1940s and Lyon's Fish Market in the 1950s. The builders came with trades: Harold Stith, the Smiley Collection's "Little Giant," the first African American plumbing contractor in Fort Wayne and a noted philanthropist; Johnny Hayes, styled the first Black licensed electrician in Indiana; William Warfield, styled the first Black real estate investor in Fort Wayne; and Mary Brooks Curry, styled the first African American legal secretary in the city.

Travelers had their own geography. The Negro Motorist Green Book's Fort Wayne listing was the duplex at 436 East Douglas Avenue — "Mrs. B. Talbot's Tourist Home" — which the Indiana DNR identifies as the only building still standing in Fort Wayne that was once listed in the Green Book; the same address went on to house the Wheatley Center's successor office and, since 2000, the African/African-American Historical Museum. The neighborhood's senior housing carries the fight's name in its founding claim: East Central Towers — the Nuckols bust's plaque, unveiled at the Urban League in 2026, credits Councilman John Nuckols with winning its construction; the construction date itself was not verified. The corridor's memory is monumental, literally: on 29 June 2026 the city dedicated the East Central mural, Rich History, Bright Future, by Julie Wall, on the Coombs Street retaining walls — its panels portraying Nuckols, Turner Chapel, the African/African-American Historical Museum and the Phyllis Wheatley Center, the Hanna Homestead Park arch, and the Ellis Funeral Home.

Sources:

1. Leah H. Reeder, "Your black history matters!," Frost Illustrated, 5 September 2015 (via ACGSI) — Carl and Mamie Wilson (1917): the pool hall, the exterminating company, Wilson's Chicken Shack.
2. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, Marsha Smiley Collection — Preston Lyons Sr. and his companies; Harold Stith; Johnny Hayes; William Warfield; Mary Brooks Curry, as the collection styles them.
3. Indiana Department of Natural Resources (2023), the Communities record and the Urban League's published history — 436 E. Douglas Avenue: Talbot's Tourist Home in the Green Book, the Wheatley/Urban League office, the museum since 2000.
4. City of Fort Wayne, "Mayor Tucker Unveils New Mural in East Central Neighborhood" (29 June 2026) and the "Shout-Out: Fort Wayne" account of the dedication — the mural's subjects, including the Ellis Funeral Home; the John Nuckols bust plaque as reported in the Journal Gazette, February 2026.