The Quest Club

Founded 1 December 1911

A club for papers: The Quest Club is Fort Wayne's most durable idea of a private club: no building, no course, no bar — a membership of business and professional men, and later women, meeting at Friday lunch to hear one of their own present an original research paper and defend it in discussion. The club's own fact sheet fixes its establishment to December 1, 1911, and a member's history — John D. Beatty's "A History of Quest Club at 100 Years," presented October 7, 2011 — records that it was founded by a group of local businessmen as a forum where they could hear lectures that would improve their management and marketing skills. A paper read to the club in 2023 names Charlie Fitch, a Jenney Electric businessman, as one of three organizers in 1911. Griswold's 1917 history, describing the club as businessmen "interested in salesmanship, advertising and modern commercial methods," dates its organization to 1913 and names Charles B. Fitch its president — two years off the club's own date, a discrepancy the record leaves standing.

The long run: Quest met, and meets, most Fridays from October through April. The papers accumulated into an archive: the Allen County Public Library holds more than 1,450 Quest Club papers, and the club's own site posts the recent ones. In the city's Bicentennial year, 1994, Quest published The Quest for Fort Wayne, an anthology of sixteen papers about the city itself; for its centennial it published Quest Club: The First 100 Years (2010), with a foreword written at the age of 102 by Allen Steere, a Lincoln National Life executive who had known some of the founders. The club counted 112 active members at its centennial and was still presenting papers in the 2020s — the lecture club outlasting nearly every clubhouse in this record.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Quest Club, Fact Sheet 2023–2024 (fwquestclub.org) — "Date Established: December 1, 1911"; the club's purpose, stated in its own words.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, "Clubs of Allen County" — the Quest Club founded 1911; the 1,450-plus papers at the Allen County Public Library; Beatty's centennial history paper.
3. AroundFortWayne, "History Center to sell Quest Club centennial book" (21 October 2010) — the December 1911 founding, the 112 active members, the Friday season, Steere's foreword.
4. Carol Young Lindquist, "Electric Works," paper presented to the Fort Wayne Quest Club, 17 March 2023 — Charlie Fitch as one of three organizers in 1911.
5. B. J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vol. I (1917) — the club "organized in 1913," Charles B. Fitch president.
6. News-Sentinel, Summit City History Notes (7 September 1994) — the 1994 anthology, The Quest for Fort Wayne.