Allen County Sheriff — verified succession points

Mayoral eras and turning points

The canal mayors. The first two decades of the mayoralty governed a canal town. Franklin P. Randall — charter author, first recorder, mayor 1859–1865 and 1869–1873 — is the era's central figure: he wrote the city's constitution, presided over it through the Civil War, and came back for a second administration in the railroad years. The Wabash and Erie Canal, whose summit level gave Fort Wayne its nickname, reached the town in 1843 under Mayor Henry Lotz; the mayors of the 1840s and 1850s — Huxford, Stewart, Jones, Whitmore, Morss — ran a port city of warehouses and packet boats that the railroads then overtook.

Zollinger and the long nineteenth century. Charles A. Zollinger's six terms (1873–1885, 1891–1893) made him the dominant mayor of the century: a street-paving, water-works era administration that ended with the sandstone City Building commissioned under his second administration in 1892 and dedicated in April 1893. He died in office that December — the table in the original section carries the fact — and Henry P. Scherer stepped in, then won the office in his own right. Between them, Zollinger and Scherer held the mayor's office for most of 1873–1901.

Hosey, Grice and the flood. William J. Hosey's four separate administrations (1906–1910, 1914–1918, 1922–1926, 1930–1935) bracket the era; between his first and second stands Jesse Grice, the former sheriff who was mayor when the rivers rose in the great flood of March 1913 and the city governed itself from boats and relief committees. W. Sherman Cutshall (1918–1922) and William C. Geake (1926–1930) fill Hosey's other intervals: for three decades Fort Wayne's elections were, in large part, a referendum on whether to bring Hosey back.

Baals, Branning and the coal scandal. Harry W. Baals served 1935–1948 and was called out of retirement in 1951 — after the city's most celebrated political scandal broke over his successor. On 10 November 1950 a grand jury indicted Democratic Mayor Henry E. Branning, Police Chief Lester Eisenhut, Councilman Charles Boyer, Traffic Captain Gregor Klug, City Utilities purchasing agent Harold Battenberg and coal company president A. Eugene Martin: fifty-two indictments in all, the key eighteen charging conspiracy to commit grand larceny of $195,461 in the city's coal purchases. Branning was beaten in the May 1951 Democratic primary by Paul Mike Burns; the Republicans persuaded the 72-year-old Baals to run once more, and he beat Burns by 262 votes. The scandal never reached a verdict: on 1 May 1954 the major indictment was ruled improperly issued, and the case collapsed. Eight days later, on 9 May 1954, Baals died in office of a kidney infection, in his fourth term, and Robert Meyers succeeded him.

Lebamoff and the 384-vote election. Ivan A. Lebamoff, a Democratic lawyer of Macedonian-Bulgarian stock, served a single term, 1972–1975. His administration ended not in removal but at the ballot box: in November 1975 Republican Robert E. Armstrong unseated him, 27,145 votes to 26,761 — a margin of 384 in a city of a quarter-million. Armstrong's single term (1976–1979) restored Republican government for the first time since Harold Zeis, and set up the Moses era.

Moses, Simon and the caucus that undid a resignation. Winfield Moses, the flood-fight mayor of March 1982, resigned on 8 July 1985 after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor campaign-finance violations — a financial-reporting error in his re-election campaign, in the Allen INGenWeb summary's words, settled by the plea. City Controller Cosette Simon acted as mayor for eleven days. Then, on 20 July, a Democratic precinct-committee caucus voted 86 of 99 to return Moses to his own office — the only time in the city's history a mayor has resigned and been handed the office back inside a fortnight. Moses finished the term; the voters did not return him in 1987, when Republican Paul Helmke won the first of three terms.

Helmke to Henry: the downtown era. Paul Helmke's three terms (1988–1999) built Headwaters Park, converting the flood-prone junction of the rivers into the city's front lawn. Graham Richard (2000–2007) proposed moving the cramped city offices out of the City-County Building in 2004; his successor executed it. Tom Henry — twenty years a councilman before he was mayor — served from 2008, the longest tenure in the office, five terms, and presided over the Citizens Square move of 2011 and the riverfront redevelopment years. Re-elected to his fifth term in November 2023, he announced a diagnosis of late-stage stomach cancer on 26 February 2024, began chemotherapy, and died in office on 28 March 2024, aged 72.

The succession of 2024. Deputy Mayor Karl Bandemer acted as mayor for twenty-six days. On Saturday 20 April 2024 the Allen County Democratic precinct chairs met in caucus — the mechanism Indiana's 1972 constitutional amendment and vacancy statutes provide — and in two rounds of voting, from a field of seven candidates, chose Sixth District Councilwoman Sharon Tucker. She was sworn in at the Clyde Theatre on 23 April 2024, with Bandemer, resuming the deputy mayor's office, administering the oath. Tucker serves the remainder of Henry's term, to 31 December 2027; the next mayoral election falls in 2027.

Sources: News-Sentinel, "Coal scandal ended mayor's career" (egen.fortwayne.com); en.wikipedia.org (Robert E. Armstrong; Sharon Tucker; List of mayors of Fort Wayne); Associated Press and Indiana Public Media, April 2024; City of Fort Wayne staff directory.