Lincoln Elementary School

Fort Wayne Community Schools, 1001 East Cook Road, Fort Wayne; prekindergarten through fifth grade; the Lions, in red and blue; built in 1975 as an open concept school, the second school in the city named for Abraham Lincoln

The Namesake: Lincoln Elementary School is named for President Abraham Lincoln, and it is the second Fort Wayne school to carry the name. The first Lincoln was a township school, built in 1915 in Washington Township at the intersection of U.S. 30 and U.S. 33; the Fort Wayne Sentinel reported its dedication in November 1915. That school closed in 1965 and was demolished. Ten years later the name returned, on a new building on the city's north side. Fort Wayne has had a school named for Lincoln, with one ten year interruption, for more than a century.

The Building: The new Lincoln was built in 1975 as an open concept school, its grades one through six taught in six pods in place of walled classrooms. Walls and additional classrooms have been added since, closing the pods in one by one. Thomas Cook was the first principal. When the school opened, Lester Grile was superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools and Dr. Helen Lee was president of the school board. The building received its modern renewal alongside its twin: Arlington Elementary, also built in 1975, and Lincoln were renovated together to designs by the firm Garmann Miller, with extensive upgrades to the heating and cooling systems and existing space reprogrammed for new academic classrooms. Construction began in the spring of 2022, run to limit disruption to the school year, and both schools stood substantially complete ahead of the 2023 to 2024 school year.

Enrollment: Lincoln opened big and stayed big. The National Center for Education Statistics counted four hundred twenty one students in 1988, three hundred seventy six of them White. Enrollment climbed for a generation, reaching seven hundred twenty eight in 2014 and still standing at seven hundred fourteen in 2018, and a church partner's newsletter could still call Lincoln the largest elementary school in the district in 2021, with more than seven hundred students. The count has since eased to five hundred ninety in 2025, taught by about forty eight teachers at about twelve students to a teacher. The makeup turned over as the school grew: White students are one hundred ninety five of the 2025 enrollment, Hispanic students one hundred fifty two, Black students one hundred thirty two, with forty two Asian students and sixty four students of two or more races. Free or discounted lunch eligibility, fifteen percent in 1988, stands at sixty seven percent in 2025. The district spends $11,595 per student here; only two of its thirty one elementary schools spend less.

Today: In 2026 Lincoln is an elementary school of about five hundred ninety students in Board of School Trustees District 1, with an English language learner program. The Lions wear red and blue. Its students feed into Shawnee Middle School and Northrop High School, and the connection runs both ways down Cook Road: every spring more than five hundred graduating Northrop Bruins walk the road to visit Shawnee and Lincoln, the feeder schools they came from, to fire up the next class of Bruins. The church that reported the Lions' colors is itself part of the school's story: Covenant United Methodist, now a tutoring partner through the district's Study Connection program, met in the Lincoln building before it built a facility of its own. SchoolDigger, working from state test data, ranks Lincoln 431st of 1,005 Indiana elementary schools in 2025, third among the district's thirty one ranked elementary schools, and its state percentile has climbed from about the twenty fifth in 2005 to about the fifty seventh in 2025.

Sources:

1. Lincoln Elementary School, Our History page, lincoln.fortwayneschools.org, 2026: named for President Abraham Lincoln; built in 1975; the second school in the city named for Lincoln, the first built in 1915 in Washington Township at the intersection of U.S. 30 and U.S. 33 and closed and demolished in 1965; the open concept building of six pods for grades one through six; walls and additional classrooms added since; first principal Thomas Cook; the English language learner program; feeders Shawnee Middle School and Northrop High School; Board District 1.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society, Lincoln School page and Elementary Schools in Allen County, Indiana, Allen INGenWeb, 2026: the dedication of the 1915 school reported in the Fort Wayne Sentinel of November 16, 1915; the district history post of April 18, 2019 giving Superintendent Lester Grile and School Board President Dr. Helen Lee at the 1975 opening.
3. Garmann Miller, Fort Wayne Community Schools portfolio, creategm.com, 2026: Arlington and Lincoln elementaries, both built in 1975, renovated with heating and cooling upgrades and reprogrammed classroom space; construction from the spring of 2022; substantially complete ahead of the 2023 to 2024 school year.
4. Covenant United Methodist Church, Outside Our Walls mission newsletter, August 2021: Lincoln the largest elementary school in Fort Wayne Community Schools with more than 700 students; the mascot the Lions and the colors red and blue, quoting the school's own account; and Covenant's own history of meeting in the Lincoln building before building its facility, as a partner of the school through the Study Connection tutoring program.
5. Northrop High School, About Us page, northrop.fortwayneschools.org, 2026: more than five hundred graduates walk down Cook Road each spring, visiting Shawnee Middle School and Lincoln Elementary, two of Northrop's main feeder schools.
6. National Center for Education Statistics, Lincoln Elementary School (180363000540), as republished by SchoolDigger: enrollment of 421 in 1988 with its composition, the peak of 728 in 2014, and 590 in 2025 with the 2025 composition; free or discounted lunch eligibility of 15 percent in 1988 and 66.9 percent in 2025; about forty eight teachers.
7. SchoolDigger, Lincoln Elementary School, 2026, from Indiana Department of Education data: average spending of $11,595 per student with twenty eight district elementary schools spending more; a rank of 431st of 1,005 Indiana elementary schools in 2025, third among the district's ranked elementary schools; a state percentile of 25.4 percent in 2005 and 57.1 percent in 2025.
8. GreatSchools and NeighborhoodScout school directories, 2026: the address, 1001 East Cook Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46825.