Fort Wayne

Fort Wayne, city, seat (1824) of Allen county, northeastern Indiana, U.S., at the confluence of the St. Marys and St. Joseph rivers where they form the Maumee River, 121 miles (195 km) northeast of Indianapolis. The waters, spanned by 21 bridges, divide the city into three parts. The place was prominent in frontier history. In the late 17th century the French built a trading post (later fort) at this natural stronghold on the site of Kekionga (or Kiskakon), once the chief town of the Miami Indians. It was attacked and taken by the English (1760) and then by Miami and Ottawas under Pontiac (1763). A log stockade constructed in 1794 by General Anthony Wayne after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near what is now Toledo, Ohio (reconstructed 1975), gave the town its name.

Fort Wayne’s industrial growth began with the building of the Wabash and Erie Canal in the 1830s and was stimulated in the 1850s when the railway came. The city’s easy access to raw materials and markets has encouraged the manufacture of a wide range of vehicles; metal, plastic, and rubber products; machinery, including automotive and electrical equipment and parts; and tools and dies. Fort Wayne is noted as a centre of higher learning; its institutions include Concordia Theological Seminary (1846), Indiana Institute of Technology (1930), Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (1917), and the University of St. Francis (1890). The Lincoln Library and Museum houses a large collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia. The Embassy Theatre (1928), a vaudeville and movie palace of mixed Spanish and Italianate design, hosts the city’s philharmonic orchestra, touring acts, and a film revival series; the theatre (including a rare Page theatre organ) and part of the adjacent Indiana Hotel (1928) were restored during the 1980s and ’90s. The Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory (1983) houses seasonal displays as well as desert and tropical plant collections in a passive-solar greenhouse.

John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), the pioneer orchard planter, is buried near the War Memorial Coliseum. Notable Fort Wayne natives include newspaper publisher William Rockhill Nelson, pathologist George Frederick Dick, editor and drama critic George Jean Nathan, actress Carole Lombard, and clothing designer Bill Blass. Inc. town, 1829; city, 1840. Pop. (2010) 253,691; Fort Wayne Metro Area, 416,257; (2020) 263,886; Fort Wayne Metro Area, 419,601.