International Harvester — Fort Wayne Works

1923 – 1983

Founded (Fort Wayne Works): Construction began 1922, production began 1923 — on the accounts cited. ACGSI gives construction beginning in 1922 at East Pontiac Street and Bueter Road, corroborated by a contemporary Fort Wayne Journal Gazette of 1 July 1923 reporting buildings commenced the previous year "nearing completion"; ACGSI, PBS Fort Wayne, MotorTrend and the News-Sentinel all agree production began in 1923. A single account (Input Fort Wayne) giving a December 1923 opening is contradicted — the July 1923 newspaper still has the plant nearing completion — so no month is printed. The parent, International Harvester Co., was formed in 1902 by merger of McCormick, Deering and three smaller firms — a corporate plant, not a locally founded firm; there is no individual Fort Wayne plant founder, and Cyrus McCormick (founder of a predecessor) is not presented as one. Siting: IH approached the Fort Wayne Chamber in 1919 with a $5 million truck-plant proposal (4,000–5,000 jobs) among 28 possible locations, and the Greater Fort Wayne Development Corporation was formed in 1920 to meet its land, housing and rail requirements — (Input Fort Wayne, citing Beaty's History of Fort Wayne & Allen County 1700–2005).

What it did: Built heavy- and medium-duty trucks (Truck Plant 1), including Class 8 over-the-road tractors, and wartime vehicles in World War II; designed and engineered trucks, ran a parts warehouse / Master Parts Depot, a Truck Sales Processing Center, a test track and a reliability/technology center on the Fort Wayne complex. In an adjacent plant (Plant 101) it built the Scout, an early sport-utility / off-road vehicle, precursor to modern SUVs.

Course: Total Fort Wayne truck production was 1,527,299 heavy and medium trucks before closure in July 1983 — strong (History Center figure carried by ACGSI and independently by MotorTrend; "over 1.5 million" is the rounded form). CONFLICT flagged and rejected: a City of Fort Wayne blog figure of "5.1 million vehicles" for Fort Wayne is irreconcilable with 1,527,299 trucks + 532,674 Scouts = 2,059,973 and with every other source checked — apparently erroneous, and not used. The one-millionth truck, a semi-tractor, was reached in 1963 — strong (ACGSI; an ACPL caption dates a contemporary IH News photo of it 27 September 1963 — that is the publication/photo date in hand, not asserted as the roll-off date). Scout: produced November 1960 to October 1980, 532,674 built — strong; exact dates in hand are first Scout 1 December 1960 and last Scout 21 October 1980 (MotorTrend; ACPL caption), reconciled with the November 1960 production-start month rather than treated as a contradiction. Scout II followed in 1971; the line closed in 1980 after an abortive attempt to sell it. Fort Wayne employment reached nearly 9,000 by the end of the 1960s and peaked at 10,600 in early 1979 — strong (ACGSI; Input/Beaty; News-Sentinel) — that figure is for all Fort Wayne IH facilities, not Truck Plant 1 alone; rounded variants (10,000; "more than 10,500") are the same peak rounded, not separate peaks. By mid-century Fort Wayne was called the "Heavy-Duty Truck Capital of the World" — as usage. Decline: a 172-day UAW strike, 1 November 1979 – April 1980, with over 8,000 Fort Wayne workers out (Locals 57 and 305) — ; by September 1981 more Local 57 members were laid off than working.

Fate: Truck production closed 1983; the wider Fort Wayne presence ended in stages, not in 1983. In July 1982 IH announced consolidating three truck plants into two, Fort Wayne (60 years old) against Springfield, Ohio (17 years old). Fort Wayne, Allen County and Indiana assembled a $31 million retention package against Springfield's $30 million — strong (News-Sentinel; Input/UPI); a reported escalated final bid of $41 million against Springfield's $28 million rests on a single Quest Club chain and is carried as a variant, not merged with the $31m/$30m figures. IH kept Springfield. Announcement-date correction: the closure was announced 27 September 1982 and **reported on the front page of the Journal Gazette on 28 September 1982** — the 28 September date is the newspaper date, not the announcement date. The announcer is conflicted in the sources (Louis Menk in the News-Sentinel retrospective vs. president Donald Lennox in a contemporary Ball State Daily News account) and is flagged, not resolved. The announcement put 2,100 layoffs; figures at closure differ by measure and date (2,200 in Input/New York Times; about 3,000 remaining in the News-Sentinel) and are not interchanged. The last truck rolled off the Fort Wayne line on 15 July 1983 — (ACGSI, News-Sentinel, Input, and the Journal Gazette's retrospective all agree on the exact date), and truck operations moved to Springfield — the final Scout had come earlier, on 21 October 1980, a Tahitian Red diesel Traveltop. An engineering and parts centre was reported to remain with about 2,000 employed in 1984 — as a closure-period report. The parent sold its agricultural division in 1985 and the remaining truck/engine business became Navistar International in 1986. The Fort Wayne Truck Development and Technology Center was phased out from 2011 and finally closed in July 2015, with the test track sold in 2015 — (MotorTrend and news accounts via secondary summaries; the exact 2011–2015 dates are left as reported, without a contemporary Fort Wayne newspaper in hand).

Sources:

1. ACGSI / Allen INGenWeb, International Harvester in Allen County (construction 1922; 1,527,299 trucks; Scout dates/total; peak 10,600; $31M package; 28 Sept 1982 Journal Gazette front page; last truck 15 July 1983) — https://www.acgsi.org/genweb/fort-wayne/ih-harvester-in-allen-county-indiana.html
2. News-Sentinel decade history, "1980–1989: Out with Harvester, on to GM" (announced 27 Sept 1982; strike; peak; closure)
3. Input Fort Wayne retrospective (1919 siting; $31M vs $30M; last truck) — https://inputfortwayne.com/international-harvester-museum/
4. MotorTrend / Harvester Homecoming (1,527,299 trucks; Scout 1 Dec 1960 – 21 Oct 1980, 532,674; technical center to 2011) — https://www.motortrend.com/events/1910-harvester-homecoming-celebration-international-harvester-fort-wayne-indiana
5. PBS Fort Wayne, Truck Town: A History of International Harvester in Fort Wayne — http://pbsfortwayne.org/trucktown/
6. Harvard Kennedy School case abstract (1982 consolidation to Springfield) — https://case.hks.harvard.edu/international-harvester/
7. Ball State Daily News, 28 Sept 1982, "Harvester chooses Springfield" (contemporary) — http://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/api/collection/BSUDlyNws/id/46339/download