BlockBefore
Photograph of Fort Wayne Old City Hall Building
Photograph by Smallbones, CC0 1.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Fort Wayne City Hall

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

From the record

“The Fort Wayne Old City Hall Building in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana operates as a museum known as The History Center, and has served as headquarters for the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society since 1980. The Richardsonian Romanesque style sandstone building was designed by the architectural firm Wing & Mahurin and built in 1893.”

Wikipedia article Fort Wayne Old City Hall Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 81 National Register listings published here for Allen County · listed in 1973 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 308 E. Berry St., Fort Wayne, 46802
  • When was it listed? June 1973
  • Category. building
  • Township. Wayne township
  • Architectural style. Richardsonian Romanesque
  • Architect. Wing & Mahurin
  • National Register reference number. 73000027 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

40,276 words

The chapter on Wayne Township in History of Allen County, Indiana., published 1880 names Fort Wayne. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

The original plat of the city of Fort Wayne was laid out by John T. Barr and John McCorkle in August, 1822, and recorded in the office of the Recorder of Randolph County, of Winchester, and subsequently in Recorder's Record A, page 316, of the records of Allen County, containing 118 lots, with three streets running north and south on a variation of 3°, 30' west of magnetic north, namely, Calhoun, Clinton and Barr ; five streets running at right angles to same variation, namely, Wayne, Berry, Main, Columbia and Water streets" The public square was laid off iu this plat, with Court street on the east side of the same. This plat, which was recorded on the 16th day of August, 1833, was' surveyed by Robert Young, of Piqua, Ohio.

Passage source: History of Allen County, Indiana., published 1880.

In September, 1829, when Fort Wayne had made considerable" progress in improvements, and the accumulations, incident to a new town eligibly situated, possessed of many of the elements of prosperous growth, and, withal, well to do in the self-respect of her citizens, had been developed, the provident people of the locality bethought themselves of the propriety, at least, if not the advantages of incorporation. Hence, pursuaut to a notice to that effect, an election was held on the 7th of September, 1829, to determine whether Fort Wayne should then and there be incorporated. The result of that election is set forth in the following certificate :

Passage source: History of Allen County, Indiana., published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Wayne Township - 40,276 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Mines and quarries near this property

6 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Fort Wayne City Hall: 5 producers, 1 occurrence. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Zinc, Fluorine-Fluorite, Sulfur, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Ardmore Stone Plant #2Stone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Sphalerite and Fluorite Occurrence Z79Zinc, Fluorine-Fluorite, SulfurOccurrenceFluorite, Sphalerite
Ardmore Sand Plant #1Sand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Brudi #1Sand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Irving Gravel Co., Inc.Sand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Midwest Aggregates Pit 1Sand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Allen County

Storms near this property

5 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fort Wayne, the town this property stands in, in 5 storm reports between 1994 and 1997: 2 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1995Thunderstorm WindFort Wayne$8,000Several automobiles were damaged by trees blown over in Fort Wayne.
July 1994Thunderstorm WindFort Wayne$5,000Trees and power lines were downed on the north and east sides of Fort Wayne.
September 1997Flash FloodFort Wayne$1,000no account filed
April 1994HailFort Wayne$500One-inch diameter hail fell on the north side of Fort Wayne at Point Inverness at 2044EST; also one inch hail near United States 33 and Cook Road on the north side of Fort Wayne at 2050 EST.
July 1997Flash FloodFort Wayne-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Allen County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Christian G. Strunz Houseunder 500 feet1979
Journal-Gazette Building0.1 miles1982
Fort Wayne Performing Arts Theatre0.1 miles2024
Alexander Taylor Rankin House0.2 miles2004
McColloch-Weatherhogg Double House0.2 miles2001
Allen County Courthouse0.2 miles1976

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 73000027 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Allen CountyAll 81 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.