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1909–1914 · THE FIRST ELEVATION
The problem: The railroads that made Fort Wayne also bisected it. The Pennsylvania and Wabash tracks ran side by side along Baker Street at street level across the whole south edge of downtown, and by the early twentieth century the streetcar suburbs south of the tracks were cut off from the city by every passing freight. The grade-crossing problem — delay, danger, and a city physically divided by its own industry — was the great civic engineering question of the decade; the bond politics and the council fight belong to the Government section, and are pointed to, not re-told, here.
The work: In 1909 the Pennsylvania and the Wabash announced a joint project to elevate their tracks through the city. Work began in March 1910, the railroads bearing 75 percent of the cost and the City of Fort Wayne 25 percent, and through 1911–13 the two roads were lifted onto embankment and viaduct from Hanna Street to Fairfield Avenue, eliminating the grade crossings on the thoroughfares between. The elevation remade the railroad plant of the south side entire: the 1860 Pennsylvania depot was removed, the Wabash built its two-story station of 1913 with its track-level second floor, and the Pennsylvania built Baker Street Station, opened 23 March 1914, with subway tunnels and stairs carrying passengers safely under the elevated tracks to the platforms — a system the Wabash station, built the same season, did without. When it was done, the south side could grow past the tracks, and did. The pattern Fort Wayne set here — railroad up, streets under, costs divided between the roads and the city — is the pattern it would spend another forty years trying to repeat on the north side.
Sources: NRHP record for the Pennsylvania Railroad Station — the 1909 joint announcement by the Pennsylvania and the Wabash, work begun March 1910, the 75/25 cost division, the abandonment of the 1860 depot, the subway-and-stair platform access and the Wabash station of 1913; ACGSI Nickel Plate Railroad page — the south-side elevation of 1911–13 clearing the bottlenecks from Hanna Street to Fairfield Avenue.