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West Central is the old residential quarter west of downtown, and it has no single plat or developer: it grew lot by lot from the canal era. The original town plat beneath it was recorded May 20, 1824, and through the 1830s the streets west of Calhoun filled with working-class houses within walking distance of the canal, the depots, and the shops. As transport improved over the nineteenth century the same streets drew the city's middle and upper classes, and West Berry, West Wayne, and West Washington filled with the houses of Fort Wayne's industrial and mercantile families — among them H. G. Olds, Ronald T. McDonald of Jenney Electric, William Page Yarnelle, Wayne Knitting Mills founder Theodore Thieme, and John Claus Peters of the Wayne Hotel. The association claims the neighborhood holds the largest collection of houses designed by John F. Wing and Marshall Mahurin, the partnership that defined Fort Wayne's grand domestic architecture. Trinity Episcopal Church at 611 West Berry Street, whose parish was organized May 25, 1844 and whose present church was completed in 1866, was listed on the National Register in its own right in 1978.
The West Central Neighborhood Association was incorporated in 1972. The local historic district took effect September 26, 1984, with expansions in 1985 and on November 12, 2020; the federal listing followed on November 15, 1984, under the name West End Historic District, with 596 contributing buildings. The association's boundaries — South Calhoun Street on the east, the St. Marys River on the north and west, and Taylor Street and the Norfolk and Western Railroad on the south — take in more ground than the historic district itself. The association published a bicentennial history of the neighborhood in 2024, and its Home and Garden Tour remains the district's public face, most recently September 6–7, 2025. The district's buildings are treated in the Architecture section.
Sources: West Central Neighborhood Association, History page, building histories, and "The History of West Central: Est. 1824" (2024); National Register nomination, West End Historic District (Ref. 84000352); Input Fort Wayne, Home and Garden Tour coverage, 2025.