Fort Wayne, Indiana · 21st century
2020s
34 dated events in 2020s, in order. Part of the full timeline.
21st century 34 dated mentions
2020s
- 20202020 · the George Floyd protests
On 29 and 30 May 2020, hundreds of Fort Wayne residents gathered downtown at the Allen County Courthouse to protest the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
- 2020Brad Miller's $9.8 million
The largest jackpot won by a Fort Wayne resident: In the record reached, the biggest lottery prize ever claimed by a Fort Wayne resident is the $9.8 million Hoosier Lotto jackpot of Saturday, February 22, 2020, claimed by Brad Miller, a Fort Wayne resident and business owner.
- 2020The Ossian shell companies
According to the Justice Department, between December 2020 and August 2022 Sexton created four shell companies and opened accounts at multiple banks; the conspiracy's business-email-compromise and government-program schemes deceived businesses and individuals into wiring money to accounts she controlled…
- 2020The Fort Wayne company among the victims
From 2020 through April 2023, the Justice Department's account runs, Ahamad and his conspirators worked business-email-compromise schemes, unemployment-benefits fraud, and Small Business Administration loan fraud…
- 2020The Philharmonic in the 2020s: furlough, strike, and a new home
Musicians had taken a 17.5 percent salary cut in 2013; in the pandemic they agreed to further cuts that brought base salary to just over $22,000, and the orchestra furloughed its players in August 2020.
- 2020–2022The year the gates stayed shut: 2020, and the return
The fairgrounds' own notice states it flatly: the 2020 Allen County Public Fair has been cancelled. What replaced it was the exhibitor core with the public removed.
- 2021The $15.8 million ticket sold on U.S. 24
In the Hoosier Lotto drawing of Saturday, August 14, 2021, one ticket matched all six numbers — 8, 18, 27, 31, 36, 42 — for a $15.8 million jackpot.
- 2021STAR Bank sells Bitcoin
The first bank in Indiana: In November 2021, STAR Financial Bank — headquartered in Fort Wayne, with $2.8 billion in assets and 36 banking centers — began offering its customers the ability to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin inside the bank's own mobile app.
- 2021Summit City Comedy Club: the successor at 5535 Saint Joe Road
In September 2021 Whatzup , the city's entertainment paper, reported Summit City Comedy Club scheduled to open that fall at 5535 St. Joe Road — the Snickerz address — and Input Fort Wayne 's scene history confirms the club "has come to the area, opening in late 2021" and "took over where Snickerz was originally located."
- 2021The Wedding Pact 2: The Baby Pact (2021): a Hollywood production, on purpose
Filming in Fort Wayne ran five days, May 22–26, 2021, centered on the courthouse, with Connor Trinneer, Quinton Aaron, Gail O'Grady, Heather McComb, Scott Michael Campbell and Richard Riehle in the cast.
- 2021–2024Sarah Zent and her children · four life sentences, and a law in Aubree's name
In the night of 1–2 June 2021 they were killed in their Fort Wayne home. The bodies were found late the following morning, 2 June.
- 2022Electric Works opens
General Electric's Broadway campus — 39 acres, 18 buildings, 1.2 million square feet, grown from the Fort Wayne Electric works of 1883 — wound down with GE's exit; the closing year is stated as 2014 in the Indianapolis Business Journal and as finally 2015 in the developer's material, and both stand in print.
- 2022The Rolland Center for Lincoln Research
The center opened on 10 January 2022, presenting the collection through physical displays, digital kiosks and a projection room that shows collection items in 180 degrees; it welcomed more than 20,000 visitors in its first year.
- 2022Vinland Reserve Winery: the county's first winery
The winery's own published account says it "was started in 2022 by a few friends who are entrepreneurs in the local community," who saw the region's rising support for wine and built, in their phrase, "a wine destination with an adventurous spirit" — the name reaching back to the Norse name for the grape-rich North American coast.
- 2022–2026The library today
The system: The Allen County Public Library today is the 367,000-square-foot Main Library at 900 Library Plaza and thirteen branches — nine in Fort Wayne and four in other Allen County communities…
- 2022–2026Saint Francis: record planned gifts, twice in four years
Before it, the university's largest single scholarship donation was the 2.1 million dollar endowed scholarship gift from the estate of Mark M. Suedhoff, announced in October 2022 and funding scholarships from 2023.
- 2023Asian Trek: The Rain Forest Reimagined, 2023
The reimagining: On 21 April 2023, as it geared up for its fifty-ninth season, the zoo announced that the Indonesian Rainforest would be reimagined and renamed Asian Trek — new species added, and the footprint expanded to ground the rain forest had never used.
- 2023–2025A Soaring Vision: the Arts United Center remade
The campaign: In October 2023 Arts United publicly launched A Soaring Vision, a capital campaign to expand and modernize the fifty-year-old Arts United Center, with a goal of $40 million.
- 2024A mayor chosen by caucus
Tom Henry, the longest-serving mayor in city history, dies in office on 28 March 2024 in his fifth term. Deputy Mayor Karl Bandemer acts for 26 days; on 23 April a Democratic caucus seats council member Sharon Tucker as the 37th person, and 46th administration, to hold the office.
- 2024A mayor dies in office; a mayor chosen by caucus
Tom Henry, the longest-serving mayor in city history, dies in office; after Karl Bandemer's 26 acting days, a Democratic caucus seats Sharon Tucker on 23 April 2024.
- 2024A mayor dies in office · the spring of 2024
Tom Henry was the longest-serving mayor in Fort Wayne's history — elected in 2007, re-elected four times, four months into his fifth term — when, on 26 February 2024, he announced at a news conference that he had been diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer.
- 2024Horizon Christian Academy
What the record shows: A kindergarten through grade 12 Christian academy in Fort Wayne, serving 148 students in its final directory listings, recorded as closed in 2024.
- 2024The drone era: winter 2024–25
The national wave and the local share: In November and December 2024, reports of large, low drones — first over New Jersey, then nationwide — produced the biggest American sky-reporting episode of the database era; more than 5,000 reports went to the FBI in the New Jersey phase alone.
- 2024The Name: Fort Wayne Zoo, from 1 January 2025
On 10 December 2024, Executive Director Rick Schuiteman announced that from 1 January 2025 the zoo would be known as the Fort Wayne Zoo.
- 2024–2026Marcia Linsky · the lawyer the courthouse lost
The Allen County Prosecuting Attorney's office dates her killing to 3 February 2024. On 13 February 2024 Calvert called 911 and reported, as the court documents state his account, that Linsky had come at him with a knife; officers who responded to the home found her dead.
- 2025The tallest sunflower in the world grew in a Fort Wayne backyard
The flower: Guinness World Records' announcement of 10 September 2025 is plain about it: after ten years, the record for the tallest sunflower had fallen to "a monster bloom grown in the backyard of a family from Fort Wayne, Indiana."
- 2025The mussel beds: the river's quiet census
Indiana's statewide fauna was historically among the richest on the continent; the Indiana DNR's official mussel list, revised February 2025, still carries the rayed bean and the clubshell as both state and federally endangered.
- 2025Michele Crider, Local Lezbian: the server whose video answered back
The audience: Under the name Local Lezbian, Crider built that moment into a following counted, by Input Fort Wayne, at 1.7 million on TikTok, as reported in September 2025.
- 2025The Creative Awards: the scene names itself
The night: On 26 September 2025, creatives from across Fort Wayne gathered at the Local Archive for the inaugural Creative Awards, conceptualized and organized by Amber Reid, Mariah James, Chelby Husidic and Amanda Miller to recognize talent across all types of creativity in the city, especially the kinds that typically go unnoticed.
- 2026HolidayFest & the Night of Lights
The switch-on, Fort Wayne's official start to the holiday season, and the biggest annual gathering of the year.
- 2026Holiday Lights at Parkview Field
More than a million lights choreographed to music in the ballpark bowl.
- 202642nd Festival of Trees
Dozens of decorated trees fill the 1928 Embassy for its signature week.
- 2026The arts today
The campus companies came home in the fall of 2025 to a rebuilt Arts United Center; Cinema Center turns fifty in 2026; the Fort Wayne Ballet turns seventy; and the Civic Theatre approaches its centennial in 2027 under new leadership for the first time in a quarter-century.
- 2026Caroline Britt, Fort Wayne Mom: the local guide as a creator business
The Fort Wayne Business Journal's profile of 31 October 2026 is this entry's document, and it records the detail that makes the page a creator business rather than a hobby: the platform has grown into one that connects businesses with potential customers, and Britt now attends events and visits locations through…