Wells Street - St. Marys River to State Street

Fort Wayne, Indiana

 

All Photos Copyright © 2010 by Robert E Pence

 

A lot of work already has gone into the Wells Street Commercial Corridor, both by the city and by local citizens and merchants. The improvements in streetscape are evident with bumpouts, bollards, new transit waiting benches, and streetlights. There's more to be done, but it can't be done magically overnight. It's already more colorful and inviting, with businesses to attract a diverse demographic.

 

 

Looking south across the old Wells Street Bridge, open to pedestrians and bicyclists, toward downtown. The bridge is a Whipple through truss, built by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company, of Canton, Ohio, in 1884. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. A new bridge for vehicle traffic was built just a little bit west of the old one.

 

 

 

Saint Muddy Marys River. The Saint Marys River flows from Grand Lake Saint Marys at Celina, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, where it joins with the Saint Joseph River to form the Maumee River. The Maumee flows northeastward through Defiance, Ohio, to enter Lake Erie at Toledo.

 

 

 

 

The part of Wells Street that once led to the bridge is now a stub that gives access to a few businesses. I've seen old photos of this building showing it when it still had it's second-story bay windows.

 

 

 

 

The Cass Street Depot houses Fort Wayne Outfitters & Bike Depot, selling bikes and renting and selling kayaks. The station once served Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, and later New York Central trains between Fort Wayne and Jackson, Michigan.

 

 

The remains of a former wooden passenger car that had last served as a camp car for railroad right-of-way maintenance crews. It burned, apparently set afire by arsonists.

 

I took photos of the car in 1973 when it was stored on a siding in Ossian, Indiana, about 15 miles south of Fort Wayne.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A long-time Wells Street business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine MASTer Academy is a charter school on the grounds of a former Catholic orphanage, Saint Vincent's Villa. The Fort Wayne YWCA was located here for several years, but was unable to sustain the costs to maintain the facility and sold it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've been past here at lunchtime, and they appear to be doing a very good business. I haven't tried the ice cream, yet, but I've heard they have unique flavors that are very good.

 

One of two near-downtown Mexican Bakeries. Mexican pastries are tempting for their sheer beauty.

 

Used books, two levels of a double storefront packed floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall and well-indexed. There are books of all sorts, on many subjects. It's a friendly store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For many years this building housed Wells Street Hardware, a place that seemed right out of the fifties or sixties. They had everything a hardware store could be expected to have, and repaired broken windows and torn screens. New owners closed up the street entrance leaving only a parking-lot entrance, and narrowed the inventory to emphasize paint and painting supplies. Their changes made the store look boarded up from the street; maybe that had something to do with their short tenure. I liked the original facade more than the cladding, but if the store serves a neighborhood purpose, good for them. I wish them success.

 

 

 

 

 

Charles "Smoky" Montgomery was born in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1922. He was a folk singer who never made it big on the professional scene, but he was a founding member of the Country Music Association. He came to Fort Wayne with a job in pharmaceuticals, and opened his record store in 1960. He was beloved in the community and always treated people well. His store was known as a source for hard-to-find 45s. Smoky died in 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you enjoy listening to NPR while sitting back and browsing photo collections on the internet, this may not be your kind of place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A short digression down some nearby streets:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Wells Street:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

State and Wells, the northernmost limit of our walking excursion for today. State Street is a major east-west thouroughfare on the north side of what was Fort Wayne before sprawl.

 

 

 

 

Here, we'll turn around and head back toward the river.

 

 

Huffman Street - the cut down the center of the street is where the streetcar tracks used to run prior to 1947. It flares out toward where I was standing, because there were tracks turning both north and south on Wells Street, behind me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack & Johnny's has been closed for a long time. They used to do a booming business at lunchtime. I remember them as being famous locally for their cheeseburgers, probably one of the all-time most rewarding gastronomical experiences of my life. So good it was hard to not eat more than one per month, but I feared more than that might send me to an early grave.

 

 

 

Commerce Drive once led to an interurban freight terminal; five interurban lines once radiated from Fort Wayne, and they used city streetcar tracks to access the downtown terminal and various freight customers that they served, usually at night after the streetcars shut down or ran less-frequent service. The interurbans also interchanged with the various steam railroads to deliver carload freight within the city, like coal for industrial boilers, grain for breweries, and chemicals for the city waterworks.

 

Charis House, a women's and children's shelter, is building a new, larger facility to replace an older, smaller one on the edge of the Central Business District.

 

Work is being done here. There's a new sidewalk, and yesterday I saw scaffolding.

 

 

Never a dull moment. I was prowling the former Fourth Street railroad yard not far away, when I heard sirens. As I approached I could see smoke, but by the time I got here there was nothing to see except firefighters mostly stowing their gear.

 

 

 

 

 

  Thanks for posting.

 

    I'm glad you noticed the Army Corps of Engineers survey marker. Few people pay attention to those.

Lord, you dun' showed the Lee's!

I really like the variety here: coffeeshop, blue-collar dive bar, hookah lounge, fried chicken joint, and even a unicyclist to top things off. Even if there's only one of each, together they make for a very unique and inclusive place. If I ever find myself in Fort Wayne I'd head right on over and spend a day here.

Another rare Whipple remaining!

I'm glad you enjoyed.

 

Over the past year or so I've noticed how the area has brightened up and become more diverse. It's a mix mostly of Appalachian, blue-collar, and retirees, and the residential properties range from tidy bungalows to low-rent multiplexes in former mansions with lots of vinyl or aluminum siding. For the most part, minorities are still clearly minorities here, but there's a gradual change. The area seems to be improving without gentrifying, and that's good to see.

 

The diversity is exemplified by G.I. Joe's where you can outfit your militia, a short distance from Hyde Brothers Books where you'll find fans of Prairie Home Companion who study art and history, love classical music and jazz, and collect rare editions.

 

  Thanks for posting.

 

    I'm glad you noticed the Army Corps of Engineers survey marker. Few people pay attention to those.

The marker may be related to flood-plain surveys. Parts of that area used to be affected by flooding every few years, but construction of levees and flood walls (100-year flood plus 2 feet) by the Corps has done a lot to mitigate the problem. As a result, areas formerly designated as flood plain now are not, and that may be a factor in the improved economic picture there.

 

I've reached an age where I have to to make sure my feet are where I think they are, so I look at the sidewalk a lot. That makes it easier to notice such things. :wink:

 

I've seen a US Coast & Geodetic Survey benchmark somewhere nearby, but now I can't remember where it was.

 

Lord, you dun' showed the Lee's!

The Colonel's KFC gets most of the fried chicken business around here - it's the suburban culture, I guess, and he has a store in every farm town big enough to have a stoplight. Lees fits the neighborhood, though and I like it better. Grease makes everything taste better!

 

Another rare Whipple remaining!

I googled "Wells Street Bridge" and found it listed on one of the historic bridge sites. It once carried streetcars and interurbans into and out of downtown. Interurban freight was too heavy, though, hence the freight house on Commerce Drive.

 

Edit: There are more photos from Fort Wayne here.

 

Great scenes! Awesome shots!