The first fight: saving the Landing, 1963–1965

1963 — 1965

A student survey starts it: In the fall of 1963 the senior class of the University of Notre Dame's School of Architecture made the first architectural survey of the 100 block of West Columbia Street — the canal-era commercial row that had been the city's first business district — and the drawings, in the Historical Society's account, became "an imaginative format for discussion and planning." Discussion was urgent. The block's ground was being speculated on as parking and expansion space for the coming City-County Building and a proposed fine arts complex, and blocks of the oldest buildings downtown were planned for demolition for redevelopment or parking lots.

In September 1964 Mayor Harold S. Zeis appointed a seven-member Mayor's Commission on the Preservation and Restoration of Historical Landmarks, chaired by Mrs. Edward A. (Joan) White, with county historian Roy M. Bates's research behind it. On September 13, 1965, Zeis signed the ordinance the commission had worked with him and the City Council to create — an ordinance, in the city's own words, "providing for the creation of Historical Districts," the first such ordinance in the state of Indiana. The Landing and the Chief Richardville House became Fort Wayne's first two local historic districts, designated, the city says, in time to celebrate Indiana's sesquicentennial in 1966. The Landing was formally dedicated on October 23, 1965.

Joan White then led the block's revival as a destination — buildings restored, streetscape improved — and the rescued street became enough of a civic stage that the first Three Rivers Festival, in 1969, held sixty of its events on Columbia Street. The saved block's own losses came by fire: on February 3, 1975, two Landing buildings were gutted, and the city's federal grant application of that spring argued for their salvation on the surveyors' finding that the facades were reparable and the superstructure sound.

Sources:

1. City of Fort Wayne, "Mid-Century Modern in Fort Wayne" (Engage Fort Wayne preservation series, 2025) — the 1964 appointment of the Mayor's Commission under Joan White, the September 13, 1965 signing, the first-in-Indiana framing, and the two first districts.
2. Roy M. Bates and Kenneth B. Keller, The Columbia Street Story (Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society) — the fall 1963 Notre Dame survey, the parking speculation for the City-County Building and Fine Arts Complex, and White's and Bates's roles.
3. Business Journal of Fort Wayne, "Fort Wayne Landing: A Historic Hub of Commerce and Community Revival" — the October 23, 1965 dedication and the 1975 fire's aftermath.
4. City of Fort Wayne resolution R-75-05-42 and its grant narrative (April 18, 1975) — the February 3, 1975 fire and the engineering findings.