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Fort Wayne was collecting its past long before it had a museum to put it in: when the last building of the old fort came down in 1852, souvenir canes were cut from its timbers, and through the rest of the century the relics accumulated in private hands and patriotic societies' cases. The institution arrived on 12 February 1921, when 141 community leaders founded the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society, the city's first permanent collecting body and the ancestor of nearly everything in this section. Its museum opened in the Swinney Homestead in 1927, stayed more than half a century, and moved in 1980 to the Old City Hall on East Berry Street as the History Center. The Chief Richardville House, the society's satellite and the oldest Native American building in the Midwest, and the city's later specialty museums complete the record of where Fort Wayne keeps what it cannot bear to throw away.
Before museums: the relic culture
1852 — the nineteenth century
Relics first: Fort Wayne was collecting its past long before it had a museum to put it in. When the last building of the old fort was torn down in 1852, souvenir canes were made from some of its timbers — the city's history was…
The Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society
Founded 12 February 1921
Founding: On 12 February 1921 the Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society was founded by 141 community leaders and history enthusiasts. Its assets were few — the DAR relics described above — but it was the city's first…
The History Center
Museum opened 1927 — Old City Hall from 1980
Homes: The society's museum opened in 1927 in the Old Swinney Homestead, which remained its headquarters for more than half a century. (The society had occupied the homestead from 1924; the museum opening itself is dated 1927 in…
The Chief Richardville House — the History Center's satellite
Built 1827 — a museum from 2004
The house as museum: The house Jean Baptiste de Richardville built in 1827 at 5705 Bluffton Road — subsidized by the United States under the 1826 Treaty of Mississinewa, and described by the History Center as the oldest Native…
The Swinney Homestead as a house museum
Homestead 1844 — museum 1927 to 1980, and again under the Settlers
Course: Thomas W. Swinney's 1844 homestead at 1424 West Jefferson Boulevard was the Historical Society's home for its first museum era: the society occupied the house from 1924 (the family's occupancy ended in 1922, when the last…
The Fort Wayne Museum of Art
Art classes 1888 — museum from 1921
Lineage: The museum begins as teaching. In 1888 J. Ottis Adams began informal classes in drawing and painting in Fort Wayne, carried on afterward by William Forsyth; by 1897 the classes were formally organized as the Fort Wayne…
The Lincoln Museum — the museum Fort Wayne lost
1931 to 2008
Founding: In February 1928 Arthur F. Hall, president of the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, created the Lincoln Historical Research Foundation to collect the record of the president his company was named for. In February…
Science Central
Incorporated 1987 — opened 5 November 1995
Founding: Science Central was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1987 — originally the Science Collective of Northeast Indiana — by teachers, parents, engineers, and community leaders who wanted a hands-on science discovery center…
The African/African-American Historical Society Museum
Museum opened 1 February 2000
Founding: The museum at 436 East Douglas Avenue is the work of Hana Stith — among the first Black teachers hired by Fort Wayne Community Schools, and the society's founder and curator until her death in 2018. The…
The Fort Wayne Firefighters Museum
Museum organized 1974 — opened 1981
Course: The museum lives in Engine House No. 3 at 226 West Washington Boulevard — the 1893 fire station designed by Wing & Mahurin (from Brentwood Tolan's plans) and more than doubled in 1907, when it became the largest station…
The Greater Fort Wayne Aviation Museum
Started 1984
Course: The aviation museum began in the early 1980s with an empty display case: airport manager Jim Ross had lost the case's advertiser when International Harvester left town, and airline station manager Roger Myers filled it…
A museum that moves: Nickel Plate 765 and the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society
Society founded 1972 — the 765 restored 1975–1979
Course: Some museums are buildings; this one is a locomotive. Berkshire No. 765, built for the Nickel Plate Road in 1944, was retired in 1963 and given to the city of Fort Wayne, which displayed it in Lawton Park wearing the…
The Old Fort as an open-air museum
Historic Fort Wayne, Inc., 1964 — the reconstructed fort opened 1976
Building a fort to keep: The reconstructed Old Fort on Spy Run Avenue is a museum whose collection is a place. Historic Fort Wayne, Inc. was established in 1964 to plan a reconstruction of the 1815–16 post from Major John…
The Karpeles years: a manuscript museum in two churches
2008 to 2022
Course: For fourteen years Fort Wayne held a branch of the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museums, David and Marsha Karpeles's free museum of original documents. It opened in late 2008 in Piqua Hall, the domed 1917 First Church of…
The county line
A closing note
This record ends at the Allen County line. Northeast Indiana's other great museum town is Auburn, in DeKalb County, whose Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum, Early Ford V-8 Foundation Museum, and National Auto & Truck Museum belong to Auburn's own history, and will be told on Auburn's page when this work reaches DeKalb County.
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