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1861 — present
The paper front: Between the militia muster and the modern recruiting station stands the machinery that turned Fort Wayne's men into soldiers on paper, and it was always local. In April 1861 the enrollment of Civil War volunteers ran through law offices and the canal collector's office — the lists headed by Major William H. Link and Captains George Humphrey and William P. Segur were placed, in Griswold's account, in the offices of Withers and Morris, Judge Hanna and the canal office, "where they were liberally signed." The federal draft that followed produced the Indiana Draft Enrollment Lists of 1862, Allen County's included, preserved in the county record. The First World War built the system's modern form: registration day, the county's draft boards sorting the registered men, and the exemption and classification work that the WWI home-front chapter covers in full — it is cross-referenced here, not retold. The Second World War and the postwar Selective Service System ran on the same local-board principle, Allen County's boards registering, classifying and inducting the county's men through Korea and into the Vietnam-era draft; the county's named dead of those wars are in the Wars record. With the all-volunteer force the machinery became recruiting: the Indiana National Guard's recruiting station at the Fort Wayne armory on Cook Road and the services' recruiting offices in the city are its present form, and the Soldier and Family Readiness Center at the same armory is the support office the Guard maintains for the families the machinery produces.
Sources:
- Griswold, Pictorial History of Fort Wayne (1917), via the surviving excerpt — the April 1861 enrollment lists and the offices where they were kept.
- ACGSI, Civil War Information for Allen County — the Indiana Draft Enrollment Lists of 1862.
- WWI Home Front — registration day and the draft boards of 1917–1918, cross-referenced.
- Military Department of Indiana (in.gov) — the Fort Wayne armory recruiting station and Soldier and Family Readiness Center, 130 W. Cook Rd.