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Waynedale was a town before it was a neighborhood, and it still behaves like one. In December 1920 Abner Elzey stood at Lower Huntington Road and what is now Old Trail Road and picked out the James Cunnison farmland as the site for a community. The land was sold to Elzey on February 15, 1921 — the date Waynedale counts as its founding. The original bounds were McArthur Drive on the south, Lower Huntington Road on the north, Old Trail Road on the east, and Beaty Avenue on the west; the only residence on the plat was the Cunnison farmhouse. On June 30, 1924, Elzey platted 110 acres for lots and streets. Elzey first thought of naming the town for his daughter Ilo, then joined what local people called Fort Wayne — simply "Wayne" — with his son's name, Dale: Waynedale. Its newspaper, The Waynedale News, published its first edition on September 2, 1932, and still publishes. (The community was platted near the site of Lewisburg, entered by Lewis Mason on June 3, 1837 — the first town platted in Wayne Township outside Fort Wayne — which never materialized.)
Waynedale never incorporated. When annexation came to a head in 1957, a community poll counted 723 residents for annexation and 633 for incorporation, and the Waynedale Civic Association under Max Farrell had opposed annexation through the study stage. On June 25, 1957, the Fort Wayne City Council voted unanimously to annex 5.27 square miles and nearly 6,000 people; the annexation took effect September 9, 1957. Sixty-five years later the separate identity is intact enough that the City plans for Waynedale as its own place: the Waynedale 2040 plan, adopted by the Council on June 9, 2026, covers 24 named neighborhoods — among them Indian Village, which has its own entry above — and a population of 13,852 in the 2020 census, after a loss of about 1,900 residents between 1980 and 2010 and a partial rebound since.
Sources: The Waynedale News, "The Founding Of Our Community," February 25, 2022, and "Waynedale Celebrates Founder," February 16, 2018; ACGSI Waynedale place file (annexation effective date); City of Fort Wayne, Waynedale 2040 plan and Engage project page.