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 whose name Arts United now gives to its arts education award. The Fort Wayne Museum of Art's account, drawing on Anita Cast's History of the Arts in Fort Wayne, records festival chair Betty Fishman's verdict and the scale the festival reached: it drew up to 100,000 visitors to see, join in, and gain exposure to the array of arts available in Fort Wayne. It ran annually until 1975. Its form matters as much as its size: a free, outdoor, participatory survey of everything the federation contained, theatre, music, dance and art in one park on one weekend, a decade before the Three Rivers Festival applied the same gathering instinct to heritage rather than art.

The succession: The line did not end in 1975. The Museum of Art's account traces it forward: in the late 1980s the FORTE Festival continued the tradition, and its modern heir is Taste of the Arts, Arts United's free daylong festival, first held on 29 August 2009 on East Main Street, built, in AroundFortWayne's report of its announcement, by merging two cancelled festivals, the food of the former Taste of Fort Wayne with the entertainment of the Arts Unite event held during Three Rivers Festival. In 2017 Taste of the Arts drew 32,000 people. The festival that began in a park in 1958 is the template for the festival article that follows and for the district's present calendar alike: Fort Wayne culture, at its most characteristic, is an open gate and a crowd.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Museum of Art blog, Margaret Ann Keegan (the first Fine Arts Festival of 17 May 1958 at Franke Park; Keegan as originator and general chairman; crowds up to 100,000; the festival's run to 1975; the FORTE Festival of the late 1980s; Taste of the Arts as its modern successor; Esther Collyer credited as creating the Fine Arts Festival predecessor in Fort Wayne Magazine's account, the Keegan origination standing on the Museum's).
2. Arts United, 2017 Annual Report (the Arts United history timeline: Margaret Ann Keegan chairing the first Fine Arts Festival of 1958 at Franke Park, held until 1975; 32,000 attending the 2017 Taste of the Arts).
3. AroundFortWayne, Taste of the Arts, 29 August 2009 (the new festival merging the former Taste of Fort Wayne and the Arts Unite event).