For decades Indiana’s tallest building. Construction of the Lincoln Tower began in October 1929 and was completed in November 1930. At 22 stories and 312 feet tall, it was Indiana’s tallest building. Lincoln National Bank and Trust was chartered as The German American National Bank in 1905. During World War I, anti-German sentiment was running high and therefore on May 31, 1918, the German American National Bank became Lincoln National Bank. Shortly after Lincoln National Bank and Trust was formed, President Charles Buesching commissioned a skyscraper to serve as headquarters for the new bank. Buesching considered it to be a monument to the German immigrants who settled the Fort Wayne area at the turn of the 20th century and formed the backbone of his investors, depositors, and customers. Buesching himself was a German immigrant. Read more on Lincoln Bank Tower on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
October 11, 2018 deleted Facebook account. For "Throwback Thursday" we share this picture of the groundbreaking for the Lincoln Tower Building. If you look closely, in the upper left you can make out the Allen County Courthouse Building. BTW..Hofer and Davis Inc. provided many surveys of the bank including surveys by Carl A. Hofer in 1960 and 1985, by William S. Davis in 1991 and Hans C. Hofer in 2005.
It's #waybackwednesday! This photo of the German American National Bank in Fort Wayne is dated 1907. At this time the President was S. M. Foster, Theo. Wentz, 1st Vice Pres., H. C. Berghoff, Cashier, C. F. Pfeiffer, 2nd Vice Pres., Geo. Waldschmidt, Asst. Cash. Capital $200,000.
Flashback Friday! The Lincoln Tower in Fort Wayne, IN, was built by Hagerman, then known as The Buesching-Hagerman Company. Construction began in late 1929, and the building opened in November 1930.
A local history collector recently gifted us with photos of the construction. The photos are dated, allowing us to see the progression of construction.
A number of buildings have changed or left us since this image was taken from atop of the Lincoln Tower in 1966. At extreme left-center are houses and buildings sitting on the block bounded by Washington, Jefferson, Lafayette and Barr where the Sheraton Hotel would be built three years later in 1969. The Sheraton was rebranded as the Holiday Inn in 1980, and became the Lamplite Inn, a senior-living community in 2011.
Above that block is St. Mary’s church at the southeast corner of Lafayette and Jefferson — sadly lost on September 2, 1993 due to a lighting strike and the resulting fire. The Gothic Revival church was built during 1886-87 of red brick and sandstone and had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Across the street from the church sits St. Mary’s School, erected in 1902-3 which included a gym, bowling alleys and library. Closed in 1963, it reopened as an experimental inner-city school in 1964, and then became Fort Wayne’s first Montessori pre-school in 1968. The building was razed in 1969 and is now Burger King’s parking lot.
At upper extreme right is St. Paul’s on Barr between Lewis and Jefferson. Constructed in 1889, a basement fire destroyed the church 14 years later in December 1903. The base of the church was able to be saved and the magnificent building was replicated on the same foundation less than two years later in 1905. Three previous Lutheran
churches had occupied this site dating back to the first having been built on these grounds in 1839.
Moving down Barr we come to the YMCA at the southwest corner of Barr and Jefferson. This $300,000. building, completed in 1919, had previously been the site of Hope Hospital, a precursor to Parkview Hospital. In 1985, the today’s Central YMCA was built just to the south of the pictured building and the old building was razed becoming a parking lot.
Moving west from the “Y” stands the Neoclassical Revival Masonic Temple. Designed by local architect Charles Weatherhogg, it was completed in 1926 as a replacement for the imposing Masonic Temple Theatre that had burned down in 1923 at the northeast corner of Clinton and Wayne Streets (site of today’s Citizen’s Square). The new ten-story Indiana Bedford Limestone edifice cost over $1M to build. To its right at the southeast corner of Washington and Clinton is the Scottish Rite Cathedral. This Gothic Revival sandstone building was designed by the Fort Wayne architects Mahurin & Mahurin and was completed in 1909. Featuring a 1,200-seat auditorium, it was razed in 1960 and is now a parking lot.
Coming north across the street is Indiana Bank and the attached City Parking Garage with its circular ramp. Built in 1957, this building replaced the First Presbyterian Church which had been at that site from 1886 until 1956 when they moved into their new building at 300 W. Wayne at Webster. Three additional stories were added to the building beginning in 1966. Indiana Bank merged with Peoples Trust Bank in 1983 forming the resulting Summit Bank. This building is now the Archbishop Noll Catholic Center.
A tip of the hat to then 16 year old Greg Mitchell for capturing this wonderful image in 1966, and now letting me share it
with you 52 years later.
Randy Harter is a Fort Wayne historian, author of three books on local history, and the history/architecture guide for Fort Wayne Food Tours.com
The German-American National Bank was chartered in 1905 on Court Street, the former site of which is now part of the Courthouse Green. The founders, Samuel Foster and Ohio banker Theodore Wentz, set upon the venture of becoming at that time the ninth bank in Fort Wayne. Just 14 years later in 1918, as a result of World War I’s strong anti-German sentiment, the bank changed its name to the patriotic sounding Lincoln National Bank, capitalizing on the thriving insurance company right down the street — also founded in 1905, and Samuel Foster was also the president.
In 1928 Lincoln National Bank merged with the Lincoln Trust Company (formerly the Strauss Brothers Commercial Bank) to become Lincoln National Bank and Trust Company. The following year in 1929, Charles Buesching, who as a teenager had been employed by the bank as messenger boy, became president of Lincoln and commissioned a skyscraper a mere half block away at 116 E. Berry for the institution’s new home. Ground broke in August, 60 days before the stock market crashed in October 1929. Despite the nation’s financial catastrophe, work continued on the $1.2M building, which was completed the following year in 1930. Adjusted for inflation, that would equate to nearly a $20M building project today. Lincoln not only survived the depression, but thrived, becoming the area’s largest bank of that era.
The 22-story building at a height of 312 feet dwarfed all other buildings in town and in fact reigned as the tallest building in Indiana until the 1960’s. Designed by the Cleveland firm of Walker and Weeks, it was based in part on elements of the Tribune Tower in Chicago. Local architect Alvin M. Strauss was hired as the associate architect for the project. The still beautiful art-deco building incorporates Indiana Limestone, Vermont marble, Italian travertine marble, Milford granite, Terra Cotta, hand wrought bronze and bronze panels, remaining unquestionably one our city’s architectural gems.
After losing money for several years, Lincoln Bank was acquired by Norwest Bank out of Minneapolis in 1993. In 1995 Norwest moved the former Lincoln offices to their new headquarters at 111 E. Wayne at Calhoun streets, and then in 1998 they merged with Wells Fargo. While Norwest was the larger of the two banks, the feeling was that nationally Wells Fargo had a stronger name, and so our Lincoln/Norwest Bank was renamed Wells Fargo in 2000.
As for the Lincoln Tower, in 1998 John Tippmann, Sr. acquired it and had it widely refurbished. Tippmann and a group of local investors that included Keith Busse, Don Schenkel, Craig Hartman, Mike Mirro, Maury O’Daniel, Rick Tomkinson, Pete Eshelman and a few others formed Tower Bank in 1999 and moved into Lincoln Bank’s former tower offices. Tower Bank was then acquired in 2014 by Old National Bank, of Evansville, who remain in the Lincoln Tower at 116 E. Berry Street to this day. (Image courtesy ACPL)
Randy Harter is a Fort Wayne historian, author, and the guide for Fort Wayne Food Tours.
November 20, 2013 deleted Facebook account. All right everybody, it's hard to believe it has been a month since the record setting "mega viral" posting regarding last month's Safety question! So here we go again with our latest Hofer and Davis,Inc. LAND SURVEYORS "Riddle of the Month" This picture was taken in 1929 by A.K. Hofer, company founder, of a high rise under construction in downtown Fort Wayne. What is the name of this building?
These poor pictures are of the plaque located across the street from the Lincoln Tower. The bank was originally started as the German-American Bank of Fort Wayne in 1905. The bank changed its name in 1918.
