The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
The center of the week was the historical pageant. Wallace Rice of Chicago wrote the Book of the Pageant and gave it its title, "The Glorious Gateway of the West"; Donald Robertson, the pageant master, trained one thousand performers to enact it. The stage stood on the island in the artificial lake in Reservoir Park, before an amphitheatre seating 14,000; the pageant was presented nightly when the weather permitted, and one night was given free to the children of the city — 14,000 of them, Griswold says, "a sight without equal in the story of Fort Wayne." The story unfolded in six scenes: the early French period at the head of the Maumee; the British rule of 1763; Wayne's victory in 1794 and the building of Fort Wayne; the siege of the fort in 1812; the evacuation by the United States troops in 1819; and the enlistment of volunteers for the Civil War in 1861. The music came from a band composed chiefly of the Elks' organization under John L. Verweire. The week's printed legacy was its own: Wallace Rice wrote the words of the Fort Wayne Centennial Hymn, chosen by competition, to music by D. Parsons Goodrich of Fort Wayne; C. E. Wittenbrook won the prize for the centennial poster; and Guy Drewett designed the official Fort Wayne flag, adopted in the centennial year.
Sources: Griswold (1917), Ch. XLIX (pageant narrative; the six scenes; "The Fort Wayne Centennial Hymn").