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Culture · How Fort Wayne decided what it was
Fort Wayne's culture was never an accident of talent. The talent was always here: a community theatre in 1927, a children's theatre in 1934, an orchestra twice-born, a German men's chorus that has sung since 1869. What changed the city's cultural history was organisation. In 1955 the arts groups did something American cities were only beginning to try: they federated, founding a single fund and a single foundation, and then they aimed that federation at downtown itself, hiring Louis Kahn to draw a Lincoln Center for a factory city of 180,000. The bet took 66 years to be formally named. In June 2021 the Indiana Arts Commission designated Arts Campus Fort Wayne a Statewide Cultural District, the first in northeast Indiana, recognising on paper what the city had been building on East Main Street since the year the Majestic Theatre came down. This section is the record of that long join: the volunteers, the union, the district, the festivals, the societies, and the moment in 1972 when the city's culture had to be saved with $250,000 raised in a hurry, with two days to spare.
The volunteer generation: a theatre in a high school, 1927
1927 - 1940
The Civic Theatre: Fort Wayne's organised culture begins with amateurs in borrowed rooms. The Fort Wayne Community Theatre Guild formed in 1927 and produced two shows that year, one in a local high school and one in a…
An orchestra twice-born: 1924, 1933, 1944
1924 - 1946
The first births: The Fort Wayne Philharmonic's family tree, as The History Center's charter record tells it, begins with the Verweire Symphony Orchestra, founded in January 1924 under conductor John L. Verweire. On 1 April 1933…
The dance floor: the Ballet and the Collective
1956 - 1978
The Ballet: Fort Wayne Ballet presents itself, in its own published profiles, as Indiana's oldest professional ballet company, founded in 1956. One secondary guide gives 1959, and the bracket [1956, per the company's own…
The union of the arts: the Fine Arts Foundation, 1955
1955 - 1988
The founding: In 1955 Fort Wayne's arts organisations did the thing this section exists to record. The Fort Wayne Art School and Museum, the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre and the Fort Wayne Musical Society founded the Fort Wayne Fine…
The festival that taught the city to gather: Franke Park, 1958
1958 - 1975
Keegan's festival: Three years after the federation, Fort Wayne invented its festival form. The first Fine Arts Festival was held on 17 May 1958 at Franke Park, originated and chaired by Margaret Ann Keegan, the public servant…
A Lincoln Center for a factory city: the Kahn commission, 1961
1959 - 1964
The ambition: In 1959 the Fine Arts Foundation studied the needs of arts and culture in Fort Wayne, and the model it chose was the most ambitious in America: Lincoln Center in New York City. The Arts Campus history records the…
One building of nine: the Arts United Center opens, 1973
1973 - 2025
The opening: Construction followed the working drawings Kahn's office completed by the summer of 1970, and the Theatre of Performing Arts was inaugurated in a weeklong grand opening from 30 September to 6 October 1973, with Kahn…
The year the city saved its palace: the Embassy, 1972
1928 - 1975
The palace: The Embassy opened on 14 May 1928 as the Emboyd Theatre, a movie palace and vaudeville house designed by A. M. Strauss and John Eberson for operator Clyde Quimby, wrapped by the seven-story Indiana Hotel and home to…
The German city sings: Turners, Männerchor, and Germanfest
1865 - 1992
The societies: Fort Wayne calls itself, in Whatzup's phrase from a Germanfest spokesman, the most German town of the region, and the claim rests on institutions, not ancestry alone. The Fort Wayne Turners were organised in 1865…
The festival city: Three Rivers and Johnny Appleseed
1969 - 2025
Three Rivers: In July 1969 Fort Wayne gave its gathering instinct a subject: itself. The first Three Rivers Festival opened on 12 July 1969 on the Columbia Street Landing, and the festival's own record, filed with the Library of…
The parish as festival: Greek Fest and the heritage calendar
1960 - 2026
Holy Trinity: The German clubs were not the only Fort Wayne community to turn a heritage into a public festival. Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church was founded in Fort Wayne in 1960, in Whatzup's account, its spokesman Frank…
Art as policy: murals, bike racks, and Art for All
2004 - 2020
Before policy, projects: Fort Wayne's public art began as events. In 2004 the Mastodons on Parade put temporary painted mastodon sculptures downtown, a success the university's next project cited as its precedent. That project…
The district named: a state cultural district, 2021
2010 - 2024
The name: The district the Fine Arts Foundation imagined in 1961 acquired its modern name in 2010, when Arts United established a formal name and brand, Arts Campus Fort Wayne, for the downtown concentration it convened: seven…
