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1892 — 1913
A trotting park that took to automobiles: In November 1892 Frederick J. Hayden sold part of his land on the northern outskirts of the city to the newly formed Fort Wayne Driving Association — D. N. and S. M. Foster, Louis and Charles Centlivre, H. C. Rockhill, and Willis Bash among its wealthy backers — which built a first-class trotting track; harness racing's Grand Circuit met there from 1896 to 1898, and the Fort Wayne Fair Association ran the city's fairs on the ground (the harness record of the later county fair belongs to the Farms section). The horses gave the ground to the automobile quickly. On Thursday, October 9, 1902, more than 16,000 people were on hand for the fair festivities that included Fort Wayne's first auto race, run on the park's one-mile oval. Automobile and motorcycle races became regular highlights of the annual fairs; Barney Oldfield, the most famous racing driver in America, raced at Driving Park in September 1907, the Fort Wayne Daily News billing the local autoists alongside him. Harness racing at the park ceased in 1908, and the fairs themselves faded: after the final fair in September 1913 the Fair Association sold the land to the developer Louis F. Curdes, streets were graded within days, and the ground became the Forest Park and Driving Park neighborhoods — the track's name survives in the Driving Park historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI), Allen INGenWeb, "Driving Park" — the October 9, 1902 first auto race and crowd, the one-mile oval, the 1913 Curdes sale and the neighborhood succession, drawing on the History Center's Notes & Queries blog and the News-Sentinel's Cityscapes series.
- Harnessbred, "Racetracks of the World — Indiana" — the November 1892 Hayden sale and Driving Association backers, Grand Circuit racing 1896–1898, harness racing's 1908 end, and automobile and motorcycle races as fair features through September 1913.
- Fort Wayne Daily News, September 25, 1907 — "Local Autoists with Barney Oldfield" (newspaper listing preserved on the ACGSI Driving Park page).