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"Aboite" names three different things, and this entry keeps them apart: Aboite Township, a civil township; the historic unincorporated community of Aboite, which actually sits in Lafayette Township at Aboite Road and the old Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway; and the everyday name for Fort Wayne's whole southwest suburban side along the Jefferson Boulevard and Illinois Road corridors. The name's origin is contested. Griswold and Taylor's 1917 history derived it from Aboite Creek, from the French word for "minnow"; Karl LaPan's 2004 Quest Club history of the township, drawing on Allen County historian Thomas Castaldi, concluded that no one seems to know, with French candidates including à bouette ("minnow" or "bait river"), abattoir ("slaughterhouse," tied to a supposed 1780 French defeat), and boîte ("box"). The slaughterhouse derivation, asserted as fact in an older township history, is tradition, not proven etymology, and is carried here as such.
The township grew from 28,338 people in the 2000 census to 35,765 in 2010. Most of its Fort Wayne portion entered the city in the Southwest Extended annexation: Ordinance X-03-96 passed December 3, 1996 and signed December 5, 1996, effective January 1, 2006 — more than 8,000 acres, 12.86 square miles, and 22,587 residents by the City's own retrospective, after a remonstrance and litigation that the Indiana Supreme Court settled for the city in 2002; Aboite residents had also tried, in 1996, to incorporate as "West Hamilton" to avoid annexation, and the county commissioners denied it. (Beatty's 2006 county history gives 25,094 people annexed over 12.8 square miles; the difference appears to be one of area definition and count date, and both figures are carried in the note at the end of this section.) The township itself was not abolished, and its unincorporated remainder — like the ring's individual subdivisions, most of which have no documented history beyond their plats — awaits the township-level treatment this city section does not attempt.
Sources: Griswold & Taylor (1917), p. 687, via the Aboite Township record; Karl R. LaPan, "History of Aboite Township," Quest Club, November 5, 2004; Matter of City of Fort Wayne, 744 N.E.2d 996 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001); City of Fort Wayne annexation retrospective, March 14, 2016; The Waynedale News, Senator David Long column, March 9, 2005; News-Sentinel Fort Wayne history project.