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Two of Fort Wayne's most famous addresses no longer exist, and both were hotels. The Anthony Hotel, at 128 West Berry Street at Harrison, opened in February 1908 — nine stories and 263 rooms, the grand hotel of the city's railroad age. Renamed the Van Orman in 1947, it declined with downtown, closed in 1969, was condemned on May 3, 1973, and was brought down by implosion on January 13, 1974 — 294 charges, nine seconds. Its site became a bank parking lot. The building's architecture is in the Architecture chapter; its place in this one is that for two-thirds of a century, "the Anthony" was the address at which Fort Wayne received the world.
The Keenan Hotel, at Washington Boulevard and Harrison Street — 1006–1016 South Harrison — was the Anthony's successor in grandeur: built in 1922 and formally dedicated on November 24, 1923, thirteen stories to a design of the Weatherhogg office, billing itself in its own advertising as "Fort Wayne's Largest and Finest Hotel." Its guest register, as the Allen County Genealogical Society's place records summarize it, included Presidents Truman and Kennedy. The end came with startling speed: after a refurbishment of some $2 million completed only a year earlier, the Keenan closed in May 1974 and was demolished on October 20, 1974, with 330 pounds of dynamite — one secondary account gives October 18; the Journal Gazette-derived record supports the 20th. Part of the Grand Wayne Center, the city's convention center, now stands on the site. In a single year, 1974, Fort Wayne demolished both of its grand hotels; the Embassy Theatre, saved in the same years, is the counterweight, and its entry stands above.
One vanished famous place is a ground rather than a building. From 1969 the Three Rivers Festival — the city's signature July festival for more than half a century — made its home on the festival grounds at Headwaters Park and the downtown riverfront, the grounds on which generations of Fort Wayne summers were spent. The festival's record, its end and its succession by Big Fort Fest, which now occupies the same Headwaters ground, are in the Events and Fort Wayne Today chapters; the place note is that the ground itself outlasted the festival: Headwaters Park East remains the city's festival floor, under a new festival's name.
Sources: Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana place records (Anthony Hotel: opened February 1908, 263 rooms, condemned May 3, 1973, imploded January 13, 1974; Keenan Hotel: dedicated November 24, 1923, presidential guests, closed May 1974, demolished October 20, 1974); Indiana Landmarks and Journal Gazette accounts of the downtown hotel demolitions; the Events and Fort Wayne Today chapters for the Three Rivers Festival and Big Fort Fest.