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1971 — 1980
Saved by being needed: Old City Hall was not rescued from a wrecking ball; it was rescued from vacancy, which in Fort Wayne has been the slower demolition. On March 11, 1971, Mayor Harold Zeis proclaimed the new City-County Building the home of municipal government and walked the city's employees out of the 1893 sandstone building at Berry and Barr. The empty building's protection came early and on paper: it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 4, 1973, barely two years after the move.
The reuse was the Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society's campaign. The Indiana German Heritage Society's 1988 account of the museum recalls "a great fund-raising effort" in which "$1,000,000 was raised for renovation," creating what it called the second largest museum of its kind in Indiana. The History Center's own record of the renovation gives the structure beneath the slogan: a federal grant of $350,000, contributions from local donors, and a matching grant of $100,000 from the city. The two accounts are printed as their sources give them — a community drive remembered at a million dollars, and a grant ledger that itemizes the public share. The museum was dedicated in October 1980, the Society leaving the Swinney Homestead it had occupied since 1927 for more than 28,000 square feet downtown; the museum was renamed The History Center in 2002, and the building was designated a single-site local historic district in 1997. The museum itself — its collections and its Richardville House satellite — is treated in the Museums section.
Sources:
- The History Center, object record HP 220, "Old City Hall Building" — the March 11, 1971 walk, the October 1980 dedication, and the $350,000 / $100,000 / donors funding account.
- Indiana German Heritage Society Newsletter (Spring 1988) — the million-dollar fund-raising effort as remembered five years on.
- National Register of Historic Places, Fort Wayne Old City Hall Building (reference no. 73000027, listed June 4, 1973); Fort Wayne Ordinance S-97-10-03 and its designation file — the 1997 local district at 302 East Berry Street.