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1963 — 1985
Eleven years that emptied downtown: The end came in sequence. The Randall, residential and faded, was razed in 1963 on Winifred Randall's death. The Hedekin — by then the Home Hotel — came down in the Columbia Street clearances of 1968–69. The Anthony, renamed and renamed back, closed in September 1969. The Indiana Hotel closed in 1971. Then, in 1974, the two towers were imploded ten months apart — the Anthony on January 13, the Keenan on October 20 — and downtown Fort Wayne, which within living memory had held hundreds of hotel rooms within a few blocks, held effectively none. The motel corridors on the bypasses and the new interstate took what trade remained. The gap is documented in the city's own press: writing in January 1982, the News-Sentinel's Kevin Leininger closed his history of the Anthony with the observation that "today, the city of Fort Wayne ponders a new hotel/convention center complex" — and doubted any new hotel could match the beauty of either lost house. The pondering became the Grand Wayne Center.
Sources:
- The entries above — the Randall (1963), Hedekin/Home Hotel (1968–69), Anthony closing (1969), Indiana closing (1971), and the 1974 implosions, each on its own sources.
- Kevin Leininger, "Anthony's tale," Cityscapes, News-Sentinel, January 23, 1982 — the 1982 hotel/convention-center deliberation, quoted.