Concordia Lutheran School

Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod), 4245 Lake Avenue, Fort Wayne; preschool through grade eight; the parish school opened in April 1900

The school: Concordia Lutheran School is the parish school of Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church, at 4245 Lake Avenue in Fort Wayne. It teaches children from three-year-old preschool through grade eight, with a departmentalized middle school whose teachers specialize by subject, and its teams are the Cubs. The federal private school count puts its enrollment at 426 students. The school states its own mission without ornament, in its handbook: to provide Concordia Lutheran High School with the most academically, socially, and spiritually prepared students and leaders in Fort Wayne. It is a feeder school and says so.

Origins: The school exists because the east side outgrew the walk downtown. In the congregation's own centennial history, the Lutheran families of St. Paul's Church on the east side of Fort Wayne found the trip to St. Paul's School at Barr and Madison Streets, usually made on foot, too long for their children, and held out for schooling closer to home. On August 6, 1899, the voters' assembly of St. Paul's granted its Eastern District permission to organize as an independent congregation, and the district resolved to build a combined church and school at Fletcher and Alliger Streets. The name Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church was adopted some weeks later. The Fort Wayne Sentinel reported the cornerstone of the new school building laid on Sunday, October 22, 1899, on Walton Avenue, with the Rev. August Lange as pastor, about 120 families on the rolls, a building of 95 by 36 feet in two stories, and the school expected to open at Easter with two instructors teaching English and German. The two accounts name different streets for the first building, and both are printed here; the streets stand in the same east-side blocks, and the record does not force a choice.

The first school: The Sentinel's Easter expectation was met. A parish school was opened in April 1900, taught by Martin Pohlmann and Viola Kolby, with an enrollment of 136 pupils, and the combined church and school building was dedicated on April 29, 1900, at a cost of 9,000 dollars. In June 1900 the congregation joined the Missouri Synod. The school was a parish school in the full sense of the term: one building, one congregation, its teachers called by the church, its first pupils the children of the families who had asked St. Paul's to let them build it.

Growth and moves: The congregation outgrew its first home quickly, building a new church on South Anthony Boulevard within about three and a half years, and in 1914 it dedicated a four-classroom school annex, by which time the school enrolled 273 pupils with seven full-time and two part-time teachers. The school's present home came a generation later. The congregation bought its Lake Avenue site for 58,000 dollars, and a new school of brown brick and Indiana limestone was dedicated on January 22, 1961, with church services held for a time both at the South Anthony church and in the school gymnasium. The present church beside the school was dedicated on September 22, 1974. In the 2003 and 2004 school year the school completed an expansion to two classes of every grade, and its gymnasium carries the name Wolf Arena.

People: The school's first teachers stand at the head of its record: Martin Pohlmann and Viola Kolby, who opened the parish school in April 1900, and the Rev. August Lange, the pastor under whom the cornerstone was laid. Its present head is named in the school's own Parent and Student Handbook for 2026 and 2027: Timothy Leech, M.Ed., Principal and Head of School.

Present state: The school is accredited by the State of Indiana and by National Lutheran School Accreditation, and its handbook for 2026 and 2027 carries the theme Anchored in Christ and the vision of growing in faith and serving Christ's kingdom together. It remains what it was built to be in 1900: the east side's Lutheran parish school, founded so that its children would not have to walk downtown to be taught, sending its graduates on to Concordia Lutheran High School as its mission states.

Sources:

1. Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church, Historically Speaking: Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church, First 100 Years (congregational centennial history): the 1899 organization, the April 1900 school opening and its first teachers, the 1914 annex, the Lake Avenue purchase and the 1961 school dedication, the 1974 church dedication, and the 2003-04 expansion, https://www.concordiachurch.org/hubfs/CLS%20and%20CLC%20History%20Book.pdf
2. Fort Wayne Sentinel, October 23, 1899, via newspaperarchive.com: the cornerstone laid October 22, 1899, on Walton Avenue, the Rev. August Lange pastor, the building's size, and the school expected at Easter
3. Concordia Lutheran School, Parent and Student Handbook, 2026-2027 (current revision July 2026): address, telephone, mission, vision, accreditation, and Timothy Leech, Principal and Head of School, https://www.clscubs.org/_files/ugd/b7a825_675eb4749ebe4899a7401e055b85da2f.pdf
4. Concordia Lutheran School, clscubs.org: grade span, the departmentalized middle school, the Cubs, and Wolf Arena
5. National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Survey, via UnivStats: enrollment of 426 students, preschool through grade eight