free genealogy since 1996
Allen County, Indiana Genealogy
Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana Places
South Wayne
Historic South Wayne Neighborhood - History of the Neighborhood
You’ve probably seen the signs around the neighborhood, but maybe you’ve wondered what they mean. Within the boundaries of our neighborhood association exists an area designated as a Historic District. The South Wayne Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The National Register is the nation’s official list of cultural resources considered worthy of preservation. Listing on the National Register gives properties a degree of protection from any potentially adverse effects of state and federally funded projects, and may also provide financial incentives for appropriate rehabilitation.
Most of this area was once part of an 80-acre tract operated as a county farm between 1848 and 1853. When the farm was divided and sold, a few houses were built but the area remained rural in character. One of the best known of the country estates built in the area was that of Judge Lindley M. Ninde, who in the 1860s built an impressive house known as “Wildwood” on Fairfield where the present Lutheran Park is located.
The establishment of the Packard Piano and Organ Company on Fairfield Avenue in 1872 led to increased development and population growth in the area. Eventually a movement was formed to incorporate South Wayne as a town. After a lengthy court battle with the City of Fort Wayne, which wanted to annex the area, the State Supreme Court ruled in favor of South Wayne and the town was incorporated in 1889.
Fort Wayne eventually succeeded in annexing South Wayne in 1894, bringing with it street car lines, utilities, and a new school. The annexation, coupled with growing industrial development, led to increased residential interest. In the South Wayne district, 80% of the homes were constructed between about 1910 and 1920, and another 15% constructed between 1920 and 1930. Craftsman, Colonial Revival, and American Foursquare are the dominant architectural styles. Consistency among the houses in terms of style, scale, materials, setback, and other character defining features still creates a pleasing rhythm along the district’s streets.
Historical Information compiled by Laura Thayer, Historic Preservation Consultant for the City of Fort Wayne, 1992
Historic South Wayne Neighborhood is home to beautiful Lutheran Park, seen here looking northeast with the nearby downtown Fort Wayne skyline in the distance. Photo by Ben Swygart http://benjaminswygart.com/
Posted by Historic South Wayne Neighborhood Association on Wednesday, September 29, 2021Wednesday, September 29, 2021 post by Historic South Wayne Neighborhood Association on Facebook:
Historic South Wayne Neighborhood is home to beautiful Lutheran Park, seen here looking northeast with the nearby downtown Fort Wayne skyline in the distance.
Photo by Ben Swygart http://benjaminswygart.com/
Fort Wayne was considerably enlarged on August 14, 1894, when the City Council declared the annexation of South Wayne. This was a territory which extended south of Creighton Ave. between Hoagland Ave. and the St. Mary’s River. The wooded area had long been a favorite ground for the Miami Indians who remained in the precincts during early town days. The reservations of Richardville, LaFontaine and Beabien were all along the St. Mary’s just south of the South Wayne community. A stream through the area, known as Shawnee Run, disappeared with drainage work. A stone bridge over Shawnee Run had existed along Fairfield Ave., just north of Pontiac Street. The bridge work was still visible under the street, according the Peter Certia who went down the sewer in 1952 to have a look at it. The stream had meandered through what later became Beechwood Circle and environs east and west.Copied from a longer article called Oakdale History: South Wayne A History of South Wayne Community on Historic Oakdale Neighborhood Association archived on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Oakdale Historic District is located in part of the city that was once called South Wayne. Land in this area became more attractive once swamps were drained and large plots were planned out. Augustus Beaver was one of the earliest residents; he bought property in 1866 and built a home in 1873. South Wayne was annexed into Fort Wayne in 1894, and the area became more attractive when Lutheran Hospital and the Fort Wayne Bible Training School were built in 1904. In 1912, land was donated to the district that would become Foster Park. When the city of Fort Wayne began expanding, more land and transportation options were added to the Oakdale district. The City Beautiful movement came to emphasize zoning, park space, and other concepts to keep the city looking great and organized. Residents of the Oakdale neighborhood include employees of important companies like General Electric or Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, professionals, and state congressional representatives. Copied from Historical Neighborhoods of Fort Wayne Tom B. May 27, 2022 Visit Fort Wayne.
- Historic Oakdale Neighborhood on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HistoricOakdale/
- Oakdale Historic District NPS Form 10-900 (Oct. 1990) OMBNo. 10024-0018 August 2000 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 34-page form.
- Oakdale Historic District (Fort Wayne, Indiana) on Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
South Wayne area was once a city unto itself
By MICHAEL HAWFIELD
from the archives of The News-Sentinel in Cityscapes - People & Places series of articles from the archives of The News-Sentinel newspaper.The square half-mile known as South Wayne is one of Fort Wayne's most familiar districts.
Once a favored hunting ground of the Miamis, South Wayne today is a residential district characterized by a rich mix of architectural styles and a strong sense of unity in the neighborhoods. Indeed, almost a century ago South Wayne was, for a brief time, a fully incorporated town separate from Fort Wayne.
South Wayne is the area south of Creighton Avenue, north of Rudisill, and west of Hoagland Avenue to the St. Marys River.
The streets that crisscross the district, such as Fairfield, Nuttman, Packard and Wildwood, recall some of the more notable settlers and developers of Fort Wayne.
For these and other early settlers, the area was a byword for good hunting, beautiful woods and - for youngsters - adventure. Exciting tales were told of the Indians who lived, hunted, and sometimes fought there. A stream that ran northwest through South Wayne from Rudisill to empty into the St. Marys River just west of the old Wells Street Bridge was known as Shawnee Run. Noted for its many plum trees, it got its name from the Shawnee bands of Indians that lived along the St. Marys in the 1820s.
More excitingly, the stream was also called Bloody Run. Several stories tell of a Miami Indian who stabbed a Shawnee brave (or was it an Ottawa brave?) to death on the steep banks of the creek in 1824. Enraged kinsmen of the murdered man armed themselves for revenge, and the whites in the region of Fort Wayne feared an uprising would put them in danger as well.
At this point, the stories continue, Jean Baptiste Richardville, chief of the Miamis, stepped in and mediated a settlement, persuading the wronged family to accept a retribution payment from the Miamis.
Richardville was the first owner of the lands that became South Wayne. Born about 1761, he was the son of Chief Little Turtle's brilliant sister, Tacumwah, and a French trader named Joseph Drouet De Richardville. Given the Miami name Pechewa, Richardville preferred to use his French name, and he became the symbol of the American Indian who adapted to the new culture that replaced his own.
A peaceful, even timid man by nature, Richardville rose to become civil chief of the Miamis (Little Turtle was war chief). If Richardville's fame rested on his reputation as a mediator and businessman, his success rested on the very capable shoulders of his mother, who not only engineered his rise to civil chief, but also managed to gain control of the lands along the ancient portage trail, which became the basis of the Richardville fortune.
Through extensive land dealings, Richardville took advantage of peace settlements after the War of 1812 and the huge increase in pioneer immigration that followed Indiana's admission to statehood in 1816.
Destined to be known as "the wealthiest Indian in North America," Richardville was branded by some as a hypocrite and a traitor to his people. Yet to others, like the old Indian agent, Sen. John Tipton, who had found it easy to negotiate with the accommodating chief, Richardville was "the ablest diplomat of whom I have knowledge. If he had been born and educated in France, he would have been the equal (of the best diplomat in Europe)."
In exchange for supporting the American cause in the Indian treaty negotiations of 1818 at Marysville, Ohio, Richardville was given vast tracts of land south of the old fort, on both sides of the St. Marys River. Much of South Wayne was included in this grant, but in 1828 he gave this portion back to the U.S. government, which began to sell its lots to new settlers.
Among the first investors in South Wayne was James Barnett, the partner and brother-in-law of Samuel Hanna. An amiable man, known as "Uncle Jimmy," Barnett had first visited Fort Wayne in 1797, and he was with Gen. William Henry Harrison's relief expedition when the fort was beseiged by Indians in 1812. In 1818 he settled permanently in Fort Wayne and built the first brick house in town, on East Columbia Street.
In 1827 Barnett and Hanna built a small dam in the St. Marys and downstream erected a mill just south of the over the river (near today's Sears Pavilion). Old Mill Road was later named after this mill, and the bridge that carried the Indianapolis State Road (Broadway, today) across the river to the Little River Turnpike, or Bluffton Road, was the principle southern route out of Fort Wayne. During the 1840s and 1850s South Wayne remained wild. Game was plentiful. One old-timer remembered that pigeons roosted in such numbers in the sycamore trees along the St. Marys that he was awakened in the middle of the night by the noise of the breaking limbs, brought down by the weight of the birds. Wolves became such a menace because of the abundant game that bounties were offered, and farmers competed with one another in the number of wolf traps they could set. Malaria was common. One settler recalled that "quinine was a necessity and as regular an item as the staples of diet." It was not until the 1870s that the area was drained and the disease brought under control.
Among the important developments which occurred in the 1850s, the Barton family sold its extensive acreage to Wayne Township, and the homestead was turned into the first county poor farm, or asylum (at the northern corner of Broadway and Savilla Avenue). It was used as a "pest house," or isolation ward, in 1849 when a cholera epidemic struck. This deadly disease hit again in 1852 and 1854, and one doctor estimated that as many as 600 people died in those three attacks. Many victims were the poor quarantined at the county asylum.
The pace of growth in South Wayne is best illustrated by the appearance in 1871 of the Fort Wayne Organ Company on Fairfield Avenue (where Packard Park is today). Isaac T. Packard came to South Wayne from Chicago in 1871, his organ company there having been destroyed by the Great Fire of Oct. 8-11 . Although Packard himself died only two years after establishing his new organ business in South Wayne, the company was taken over by Stephen Bond, a banker who made the business one of the finest of its kind in the country.
Prosperity was such in the 1870s and 1880s that there was considerable agitation to incorporate South Wayne as an independent town. In large measure this movement began in order to prevent Fort Wayne from annexing the area for its tax revenue. The first petition for incorporation, filed in 1872, stirred a bitter court fight with the Fort Wayne City Council. In the end, the city failed to annex the area, but South Wayne also failed to win independence.
Fifteen years later, the movement for incorporation was taken up again, this time led by William J. Vesey and Henry Ninde. By 1889 the Allen County Commissioners agreed to order a general referendum of South Wayne residents to decide the issue. An overwhelming vote for incorporation as a town was returned, and South Wayne was declared by the commissioners an independent town of Allen County.
Independence lasted until 1894. By that year the costs of sidewalks, sewers, waterworks , and Jenney Electric lights at the intersections had become so costly that the town board was forced to levy a stiff property tax - the very thing the citizens had originally sought to avoid by fighting annexation by the city.
Many residents now saw benefits in becoming part of Fort Wayne. But because the majority still voted for continued independence from Fort Wayne, the issue went to the highest courts. Fort Wayne attorney James Barrett finally won for the city, and South Wayne was annexed in 1894.
After the turn of the century, South Wayne's community centers began to assume their identity. South Wayne school was established, and Pastor Philip Wambeganes founded the Emmaus Evangelical Lutheran Church and school. The old "Wildwood" estate of the Ninde family was sold to the Lutheran Hospital Association in 1904, marking the beginning of Lutheran Hospital.
The old Fort Wayne Organ Co. fared well only until the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the death of Stephen Bond in 1907, his son, Albert, had taken over the business and made it a model of management-labor relations in the early 20th century.
The name of the company had been changed to the Packard Organ Co. in 1899, and after abandoning the faltering organ business, became the Packard Piano Co. in 1915. A productive and proud company, it even lent its skills in woodworking to the war effort in 1918 by making propellors for Army warplanes. After the stock market crash of Oct. 29 , 1929, the company went into receivership and collapsed in 1930. This was the first, last and only industry in the primarily residential district of South Wayne.
--Feb. 21, 1994
Starting at 10 AM today is the South Wayne Historic Home and Garden Tour, where you can get the opportunity to tour ten...
Posted by Historic 07 District - Fort Wayne on Saturday, June 22, 2024Saturday, June 22, 2024 post by the Historic 07 District - Fort Wayne on Facebook:
Starting at 10 AM today is the South Wayne Historic Home and Garden Tour, where you can get the opportunity to tour ten homes while enjoying the architecture and stories of those who built the neighborhood. Interestingly, this neighborhood has more Joel Roberts Ninde, a famous woman architect, than any other neighborhood in the city. However, this neighborhood and the homes may not have existed had it not been for a much older home known as Wildwood. Read on for more.
Once a collection of country estates, the South Wayne area transitioned into a town and was officially incorporated in 1889. The narrative of this transformation, which shaped the area into its present form, begins with the figure of Judge L.M. Ninde. Born in 1825, Lindley Ninde was named after Lindley Murray, a national figure known for his contributions to English-language grammar books for schools.
Despite his farming background, Ninde pursued a legal career and arrived in Fort Wayne in 1851, a city with a population of no more than 5,000 at the time. His legal expertise was instrumental in holding the expanding railroad industry accountable for injuries caused by their operations. In an era when train-pedestrian accidents were common, Ninde's efforts to help the affected families sue the railroads not only brought justice but also contributed to his wealth.
This wealth allowed him to purchase a large tract of land, where Lutheran Park is today, and build a large 21-room estate known as Wildwood. While Ninde had a storied career, he passed away in 1901, leaving his considerable estate to his children. One of them was his son, Lee, who married Joel, an accomplished violinist and future architectural trailblazer. Lee and Joel had the opportunity to move into Wildwood, but Joel wouldn’t have it as she wanted a home of convenience.
The Wildwood home was sold to Lutheran Hospital in 1903 and served as a 25-bed hospital before further expansion. The growth of Lutheran Hospital allowed the neighborhood to flourish as 95% of the homes in South Wayne were built between 1910 and 1930, some of which by Joel Linde under the company Wildwood Builders.