Fort Wayne, Indiana · 20th century
1920s
68 dated events in 1920s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
20th century 68 dated mentions
1920s
- 1920Irving Rifkin — scrap from a truck
Irving Rifkin emigrated from Russia in 1920 and began as so many Fort Wayne founders began — with almost nothing: he collected and resold scrap from a truck, and borrowed $7,500 from an uncle to get standing.
- 1920Camp Potawotami: the Y's lake in the woods
The founding: The YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne's resident camp dates itself to 1920, and a century of Fort Wayne children have been bused the roughly forty miles north to it: Camp Potawotami, on the shores of Blackman Lake in LaGrange County, over 210 acres of woodlands, meadows and wetlands by the camp's own description.
- 1920–1921The first votes, and the first office · Catherine Dinklage
Within a year of voting, a Fort Wayne woman held office: Fort Wayne women voted in a general election for the first time in November 1920.
- 1920–1921The library goes county-wide
Course: In the summer of 1920 petitions for county library service circulated through Allen County, promoted by County Superintendent of Schools David O. McComb; at least a quarter of the county's taxpayers signed.
- 1920–1948Indiana Service Corporation
Founded: Incorporated 15 January 1920 (the Railroad Retirement Board's general counsel opinion gives 15 January; a contemporary ICC filing gives the creditable-service start as 16 January) as successor to the Fort Wayne & Northern Indiana Traction Company, with its principal office in Fort Wayne's Utility Building.
- 1920–todayThe Phyllis Wheatley Center and the Urban League · the organizing center
A century on Douglas Avenue and Hanna Street: In 1920 Black Fort Wayners founded the Phyllis Wheatley Social Center — named for the poet Phillis Wheatley — as the recreational and social hub of Black Fort Wayne, housed at 421 Douglas Avenue.
- 1921Huntertown Branch
Huntertown was one of the first four county branches opened in November 1921, when county-wide service began. The branch served the town for much of the twentieth century and has since closed; the sources used do not give the closing date.
- 1921Monroeville Branch
Monroeville was one of the first four county branches opened in November 1921, serving the town of Monroeville in the county's southeast.
- 1921New Haven Branch
New Haven was one of the first four county branches opened in November 1921. It serves New Haven, Allen County's second city, and remains in service today as one of the four branches outside Fort Wayne.
- 1921Harlan Branch
Harlan's library service began with a deposit collection of one hundred books placed in the Reeder Drug Store on 6 November 1921; demand was strong from the first weeks, and the Harlan Branch room opened that December as one of the system's first four county branches.
- 1921The Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society
Founding: On 12 February 1921 the Allen County–Fort Wayne Historical Society was founded by 141 community leaders and history enthusiasts.
- 1921Marilyn Maxwell: the Hope partnership
The tie: Marvel Marilyn Maxwell was born in Clarinda, Iowa, on August 3, 1921 (some listings give 1920), and raised in Fort Wayne, where the family settled in her childhood.
- 1921–1949Franke Park: the day camp in the biscuit man's woods
The gift: In 1921 John B. Franke, president of the Perfection Biscuit Company, donated 80 acres to establish the park that bears his name, the largest gift of play space in the city's history…
- 1921–1952The Ground: Franke Park and the 1952 Preserve
The park began in 1921, when John B. Franke, president of the Perfection Biscuit Company, donated eighty acres to the city; across ninety years it grew to 339.4 acres, and its whole course — the day camp, the Foellinger Theatre, the Diehm Museum, the trails — is told in the Parks and Plans section of this record.
- 1921–2019The civic and cultural gifts: a rescue, a founding collection, and the honest thinness of the rest
The art museum's two bookends: The Fort Wayne Museum of Art begins with a gift: in 1921 Theodore Thieme gave 10,000 dollars in cash, his art collection of ten paintings, and his house at 1026 West Berry Street to establish the Fort Wayne Art School and Museum — a founding gift modest in dollars and total in effect.
- 1921–2024The firsts in office · from the council chamber to the mayor's office
A century of firsts, each one dated: Catherine Dinklage's election to the City Council on 8 November 1921 opens the sequence (entry above).
- 1922The flagship · VFW Jim Eby Post 857
Jim Eby Post 857 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars was chartered on 13 January 1922, and the post itself claims to be the second-oldest VFW post still operating in Indiana.
- 1922From federation to United Way of Allen County
Founding: United Way of Allen County was established in 1922. It belongs to the movement that, across industrial America, replaced agency-by-agency begging with one federated campaign — the Community Chest model: a single annual drive, a citizen allocation process, and member agencies funded from the common pool.
- 1922The community foundation's first five thousand, and the Clarke twenty million
The first gift: The Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne began, on 2 June 1922, as the Fort Wayne Foundation, and its first documented gift was William Mossman's 5,000 dollars — five thousand dollars that started a century.
- 1922Bill Blass: the dressmaker's son from South Calhoun Street
Born and raised here, precisely: William Ralph Blass was born in Fort Wayne on 22 June 1922 and grew up at 3618 South Calhoun Street, across from the high school he attended.
- 1922–1941The Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne: the pooled vehicle
It was established 2 June 1922 as the Fort Wayne Foundation — William Mossman's $5,000 gift its first — wound down when its trustees voted to terminate on 2 December 1941, and reborn on 1 August 1956 as the United Charitable Foundation of Allen County, taking its present name in June 2005 (the full history, with the…
- 1922–1981Clyde Burt: the potter Fort Wayne trained
The training: Clyde Edwin Burt was born on 5 February 1922 at Melrose, Ohio, and his road to the first rank of American studio ceramics ran through Fort Wayne twice.
- 1922–1983The Fort Wayne Works: sixty years of trucks
The plant: In 1922 the International Harvester Company began construction on the east side of Fort Wayne, at East Pontiac Street and Bueter Road; production began in 1923.
- 1922–2002Bill Blass: the dressmaker's son who dressed America
The Fort Wayne start: William Ralph Blass was born on 22 June 1922 in Fort Wayne, the son of Ralph Aldrich Blass, a traveling hardware salesman, and Ethyl Keyser Blass, who made dresses.
- 1922–todaySouth Side High School
Founded: Opened September 11, 1922, on South Calhoun Street, at a cost of about one million dollars. It was billed at opening as the largest one-story school building in the United States, covering three acres with a capacity of 1,500.
- 1923The first wrapped bread in Indiana
The Perfection bakery — the firm behind Perfection Wafers and, from 1946, the Sunbeam bread whose sign became a downtown landmark in 1957 — was, in 1923, the first bakery in Indiana to offer wrapped bread.
- 1923The mayoralty: terms and shape
The office first appears in the 1894–95 directory, and the directories then name a comptroller every year through 1923, where wave 2's anchor points take over.
- 1923Theme Brothers Hosiery (Los Angeles)
Founded: 1923, Los Angeles.
- 1923The Keenan: the manager builds his own tower, 1923–1974
The Hotel Keenan was formally dedicated on November 24, 1923, and proclaimed itself "Fort Wayne's Largest and Finest Hotel."
- 1923The Broadway: the neighborhood house that outlived its names
One of the five: The Broadway Theatre at 2441 Broadway opened on November 5, 1923, for both stage and screen events — the News-Sentinel carried the new house that week — as one of five neighborhood theatres built in Fort Wayne in those years, and the only one on Broadway, then a major commercial strip.
- 1923Grieger Chevrolet: the manager who went into business for himself
The founding: Clarence A. Grieger (30 April 1894 — March 1970) came up through the service side of the trade: the newspaper record has him first as a shop foreman at the Terre Haute Cadillac service station, then as the local manager of the Steinhart company's Lafayette branch…
- 1923–1974Hotel Keenan
Founded: Built 1922–23 by James F. Keenan at the southwest corner of Washington Boulevard and Harrison Street and formally dedicated 24 November 1923.
- 1923–1983International Harvester's sixty years
Construction starts 1922 on East Pontiac/Bueter; truck production runs 1923 to the end. The plant builds 1,527,299 trucks , including 532,674 Scouts (Nov 1960–Oct 1980), and peaks at 10,600 employees in early 1979.
- 1923–1983International Harvester — Fort Wayne Works
Founded (Fort Wayne Works): Construction began 1922, production began 1923 — on the accounts cited.
- 1923–1985The Harvester boundary: the Fort Wayne Works built trucks, never farm tractors
The plant that opened in 1923 and made Fort Wayne, in the local record's phrase, the Heavy-Duty Truck Capital of the World built medium and heavy trucks — and, from 1960 to 1980, the Scout — and no farm tractor ever came down its lines.
- 1924Orchard Ridge Country Club
The club's own history states the founding plainly: organized in 1924, and in 1925 the club leased 115 acres of rolling ground on Lower Huntington Road, where the course and clubhouse still stand.
- 1924The first orchestras: Verweire and the Civic Symphony
In January 1924, conductor John L. Verweire founded the Verweire Symphony Orchestra, the city's first attempt at a permanent orchestral institution.
- 1924The Rialto Theatre: the South Calhoun neighborhood palace
The candy maker's theatre: The Rialto Theatre at 2616 South Calhoun Street was built in 1924 for $150,000 by James Heliotes, who also operated a candy factory in Fort Wayne, and its grand opening came at 1 p.m. on August 20, 1924.
- 1924–1934The gang era, tested · the famous gangs robbed around Fort Wayne, not in it
The Pierpont gang: Harry Pierpont's gang of 1924–25, in which the young John Dillinger briefly served, robbed the South Marion State Bank at Marion (Nov. 26, 1924), the Citizens State Bank at Noblesville (Dec. 16, 1924), the Upland State Bank (Dec. 23, 1924), the New Harmony Bank and Trust (March 10, 1925), and the…
- 1924–1946An orchestra twice-born: 1924, 1933, 1944
The first births: The Fort Wayne Philharmonic's family tree, as The History Center's charter record tells it, begins with the Verweire Symphony Orchestra, founded in January 1924 under conductor John L. Verweire.
- 1925August Lassus — from coal to gasoline
August Lassus sold his coal business in 1925 to build a gasoline station at one of Fort Wayne's busiest intersections — the founding act of Lassus Bros. Oil.
- 1925Hosey Dam: the city's hand on the Maumee
The Hosey Dam — National Inventory of Dams No. IN00810 — is a concrete dam finished in 1925, ten feet high and 475 feet long, named for Mayor William J. Hosey, whose administration's plaque in the powerhouse wall reads "Maumee River Dam and Hydro Electric Plant — William J. Hosey, Mayor 1923–1925."
- 1925Smith Field: dedicated for Baer, renamed for Smith
Fort Wayne's first municipal airport: The field was purchased by the City of Fort Wayne in 1925, and on 25 June of that year it was dedicated as the Paul Baer Municipal Airport — the city's primary airport, named for Fort Wayne's First World War ace while Baer was still alive and flying.
- 1925Air shows and the exhibition tradition
In 1925, the year of its dedication, the new municipal airport hosted an airshow that drew 50,000 spectators, in AOPA's telling.
- 1925The Fort Wayne Woman's Club · the clubhouse on West Wayne Street
A generation after the League, a single great club: the Fort Wayne Woman's Club — a different body from the Woman's Club League, and the two are not to be merged — was organized on 7 March 1925 under its founder, Mrs. John E. Moring, and incorporated on 31 July 1925.
- 1925–todayLassus Bros. Oil Company
Founded: In 1925 August Lassus sold his coal business to build a gasoline station at one of Fort Wayne's busiest intersections.
- 1927The History Center
Homes: The society's museum opened in 1927 in the Old Swinney Homestead, which remained its headquarters for more than half a century.
- 1927–1939The electric pig: a claim that fails, and the Fort Wayne part that stands
The disposer was devised by John W. Hammes of Racine, Wisconsin, beginning in 1927; he filed his patent in 1933 and founded the InSinkErator company in 1938 — and the "electric pig" nickname itself attaches to Hammes's appliance in the national accounts of its introduction.
- 1927–1940The volunteer generation: a theatre in a high school, 1927
The Fort Wayne Community Theatre Guild formed in 1927 and produced two shows that year, one in a local high school and one in a neighbourhood church.
- 1927–1954Capehart, Farnsworth, and the Pontiac Street plant — ITT's roots here
Homer E. Capehart founded the Capehart Corporation in Fort Wayne in 1927 to build automatic phonographs and high-end radio-phonographs.
- 1927–1973Fort Wayne Civic Theatre: the wandering company
Founding: The company's own historic overview begins in 1927, when the Fort Wayne Community Theatre Guild was formed and produced two shows — one in a local high school, one in a neighborhood church (the shows were Seven Keys to Baldpate and The Charm School ).
- 1927–1992Book wagons and bookmobiles
A book wagon served children in the Rolling Mills district in the summer of 1927. The first wagon: The library bought its first year-round book wagon in September 1929 — an International Harvester chassis with a custom closed body, shelving inside and out, glass weather sides and room for about 1,000 books.
- 1927–todayNorth Side High School
North Side High School opened in 1927 at 475 E. State Blvd, Fort Wayne Community Schools' second high school, built for the growing north side of the city.
- 1928The Embassy: the palace that survived
Cross-reference: The Emboyd — opened May 14, 1928, by W. Clyde Quimby, renamed the Embassy on its sale to Alliance Amusement in 1952, a movie palace until the theatre went dark in the early 1970s, and saved from demolition by the Embassy Theatre Foundation…
- 1928Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corporation → Farnsworth Television & Radio Corporation (Capehart-Farnsworth)
Founded: Incorporated February 1928, Huntington, Indiana.
- 1928The Indiana Hotel: the theatre's hotel, 1928–1971, and its second life
Clyde Quimby's Emboyd Theatre opened on May 14, 1928, and with it, wrapped around the theatre's north and west sides at the southeast corner of Jefferson and Harrison — on land that had been Plymouth Congregational Church's — opened the Indiana Hotel, in May 1928.
- 1928Miss Page: the Embassy's Grande Page organ
Not a Wurlitzer: The Embassy Theatre's famous organ is a Page — a Grande Page theatre pipe organ of four manuals and fifteen ranks, built by the Page Organ Company of Lima, Ohio, and installed when the theatre opened as the Emboyd on May 14, 1928.
- 1928The Embassy as a stage: vaudeville, the rescue, and the Broadway tours
The palace years: The Embassy opened on May 14, 1928, as the Emboyd Theatre — a movie palace and vaudeville house built by theatre operator W. Clyde Quimby at a cost of $1.5 million, attached to the 250-room Indiana Hotel, with the Grande Page theatre pipe organ for the silent films.
- 1928Dick York: the first Darrin Stephens
The tie: Richard Allen York was born in Fort Wayne on September 4, 1928, the son of Bernard York, a salesman, and Betty York, a seamstress.
- 1928–1930A movie palace and a skyscraper
On 14 May 1928 the Emboyd Theatre opened at Jefferson and Harrison — 2,970 seats, a Grande Page pipe organ, air conditioning among the first in the city, and the seven-story Indiana Hotel wrapped around it — built by theatre operator Clyde Quimby and named for his mother (the papers spell her Emma Boyd; later accounts give Emilie).
- 1928–1932Paul Manship: a Hoosier youth with no model
The commission: In 1928 the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, a Fort Wayne firm built on the Lincoln name, commissioned the most fashionable sculptor in America to make its monument: Paul Manship.
- 1928–1960The Genealogy Center: DAR shelves and the book hunts
Beginnings: Genealogy at the library began with the Daughters of the American Revolution: a DAR shelf collection seeded by Sue Vesta Hanna's 1928 bequest of twenty-three books, growing to some 400 volumes, among them Griswold's Pictorial History of Fort Wayne.
- 1928–1972Emboyd Theatre (Embassy Theatre) and the Indiana Hotel
Theatre operator Clyde Quimby opened the Emboyd Theatre on 14 May 1928 — named for his mother, Emilie Boyd — a 3,100-seat movie palace and vaudeville house at 125 West Jefferson Boulevard, designed by A. M. Strauss and John Eberson, with its Grande Page pipe organ.
- 1928–1975The year the city saved its palace: the Embassy, 1972
The palace: The Embassy opened on 14 May 1928 as the Emboyd Theatre, a movie palace and vaudeville house designed by A. M. Strauss and John Eberson for operator Clyde Quimby, wrapped by the seven-story Indiana Hotel and home to the Grande Page pipe organ, Miss Page, of more than 1,000 pipes.
- 1928–1979The Santa over Calhoun Street: Wolf & Dessauer's gift to December
From 1928 the Wolf & Dessauer department store dressed animated holiday windows, the Winter WanDerland displays, under display chief Allen Bixby, who held the post to 1956 and travelled to Chicago stores to study their work; local memory rated the magic windows the equal of Macy's.
- 1928–2008The Lincoln Collection: an insurance company's museum
In 1928 the company's president, Arthur F. Hall, created the Lincoln Historical Research Foundation to collect Lincoln material, and the collection was displayed for decades at the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne.
- 1929St. Joseph's long course: growth, the burn center, the sale, and the closing of 2021
The Broadway building that stood at the end was built in 1929.
- 1929–19331929–1933 — the failure record
Iwan Morgan's study of the city in the Indiana Magazine of History counts eleven banks, and puts per-capita bank deposits at $664 in December 1929 — the highest of Indiana's principal cities, against $573 in Evansville, $464 in Indianapolis, $458 in South Bend and $207 in Gary — with over $1.1 million held in Christmas savings clubs.