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 already an object to be kept and carried. Through the later nineteenth century, pioneer relics, Indian artifacts, and military souvenirs accumulated in private hands and patriotic societies' cabinets. The Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution preserved a small body of historical relics, and it was those relics — little more — that the Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society held when it was founded in 1921. From 1902 to 1926, artifacts of the early collection were on display in the county's first museum, the "Relic Room" at the Allen County Courthouse: a single room, but the direct ancestor of every museum in this record.

Sources:

1. The History Center, "About" (fwhistorycenter.org) — the society's 1921 assets consisting of relics preserved by the Mary Penrose Wayne Chapter, DAR.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI), 1920s timeline of Allen County — the Relic Room at the Allen County Courthouse, 1902 to 1926.
3. Visit Fort Wayne, Allen County Historic Sites — the last fort building torn down in 1852 and souvenir canes made from its timbers, citing the Historical Society.