Candlewood Suites Fort Wayne

Summer Festivals

by Ischyros

Fort Wayne is a party town. Almost every weekend in the summer there is some kind of festival going on in town! If you can't find a festival to fit your needs, head out to Jefferson Pointe on Friday nights for Friday Nites Live! Here's a rundown the this summers major festivals. Unless otherwise noted festivals are at Headwaters Park downtown (Updated for 2008):

Vera Bradley Classic - May 30 - June 2 (Charity Golf & Tennis Tournament, Various locations.)

Germanfest - June 1-8

New Haven Canal Days - June 3-7 (New Haven, IN)

Mad Anthony Celebrity Classic - June 9 (Charity Golf Tournament, Fort Wayne Country Club, 5221 Covington Rd.)

Indiana Highland Games - June 14 (Concordia Theological Seminary)

RibFest - June 19-22

Greekfest - June 26-28

Three Rivers Festival - July 12-20

Allen County Fair - July 22-27 (Allen County Fairgrounds, 2726 Carroll Rd, Fort Wayne)

Hispanic Heritage Festival - August 2-3

Muddy River Run - August 9-10 (Car Show, Allen County Fairgrounds, 2726 Carroll Rd, Fort Wayne)

Indiana Black Expo - August 10-16

Taste of Fort Wayne - August 23

Auburn-Cord-Duesenburg Festival - August 28 - September 1 (Various Locations, Auburn, IN)

Chilifest - August 31 - September 1

Be a Tourist in Your Own Hometown - September 7 Noon-5PM (Free admission to various city attractions with passport from the Visitors' Center)

Rockin' Docs Musicfest - September 12-13

Johnny Appleseed Festival - September 20-21 (Johnny Appleseed Park, Off Coliseum Blvd behind the Coliseum and Memorial Stadium)

For full list of Fort Wayne events, head to the Fort Wayne Visitors Center website and click on Calendar of Events.

The Lincoln Museum

by Ischyros

This used to be listed in my Tourist Trap list but after must debating I came to the conclusion that it doesn't really fit the description of a tourist trap, which to mean is something that cons you into paying money to visit a place and then not delivering what was promised. Well, the Lincoln Museum does deliver. It is the largest private collection of Lincoln memoribilia in the world. The museum includes several interactive exhibits as well as hand written documents from the president and family photos. There are several short films about Lincoln's life, a very detailed timeline of the Civil War, and even a replica of the theater box Lincoln was assassinated in at Ford's Theater (pictured, sorry it's so dark!) The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday 1-5 pm. Closed Mondays. It is closed New Year's Day, Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Admission is $4.99 for adults. $3.99 for seniors 60 and over and for kids age 5-12. Parking is free.

NOTE: The Lincoln Museum is currently scheduled to close permanently on June 30, 2008.

Fort Wayne, The summit City

by Fullmoonfever

"Welcome to my home town, Sorta"

Fort Wayne is not the city I live in, but it’s the closest big town and we go there often. The above picture is of the Greenway going thru and around the city. Its a total of about 50 miles now. In certain parts its called the river walk. Fort Wayne has 3 rivers and this path runs along all 3 of them. We go there and ride our bikes.

A brief History of Fort Wayne

The first census, performed in 1744 on the order by the governor of Louisiana, revealed a population of approximately forty Frenchmen and one thousand Miami. The current population of the metropolitan area is 500,000.

Fort Wayne was named for a fort, built in 1794 by Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne. (Confusingly enough, the US Army built another Fort Wayne years later, but the city at that location calls itself Detroit, Michigan.) The fort was built next to Chief Little Turtle's community of Kekionga, largest of all Miami tribe villages, where the St. Joseph River and St. Marys River join to form the Maumee River. Originally a portage, later a canal and rail center, located on the first coast-to-coast paved highway, Fort Wayne was "Gateway to the West". Located on the continental divide between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico watersheds, Fort Wayne is the "Summit City".

Colleges

Fort Wayne is the home of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), with an enrollment of 11,755 is the 5th-largest public university campus in Indiana. The city also hold the main campus of the Northeast Region of Ivy Tech State College, the second-largest public community college campus in the state. Indiana University (IU) maintains the third public higher educational facility in the city with the Fort Wayne Center for Medical Education, a branch of the IU School of Medicine.

Fort Wayne's private colleges and universities include religious-affiliates and secular institutions include the University of Saint Francis (Catholic), Concordia Theological Seminary (Lutheran) and Taylor University Fort Wayne Campus (Evangelical Christian). Non-religious colleges and universities include the Indiana Institute of Technology (IIT) as well as regional branches of both Indiana Business College and International Business College.

Sports in Fort Wayne

Fort Wayne has 5 professional sports teams;
Fort Wayne Fever–soccer
Flyers-Football
Freedom-Indoor football
Komets-Hockey
Wizards-Baseball

Sports trivia

The first major league baseball game was played on May 4, 1871, between the Fort Wayne Kekiongas and the Cleveland Forest Citys. It was rained out in the top of the 9th inning, with the Kekiongas ahead 2-0. The Kekiongas franchise in the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was sold midway through the first season, and they moved to Brooklyn, where they eventually became the Trolley Dodgers and eventually today's Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team.

In women's sports, Fort Wayne was the home of the Daisies, the first women's professional baseball team.

The Fort wayne Pistons were sold in 1957, moved and became the Detroit Pistons.

Miscellaneous Trivia

Nationally, Fort Wayne is the home of the Macedonian Tribune, the oldest and largest Macedonian language publication produced outside of the Balkans.

As of 2005, the city had 87 parks.

Johnny Appleseed was a real person and is buried in Fort Wayne!!! There is a city park named after him. I hope to take a photo of his grave site and post it here.

A few famous people from Ft Wayne
Bill Blass- fashion designer
Carole Lombard- actress,
Shelley Long- actress

Sister Cities

Gera, Germany since 1992
Pock, Poland since 1990
Takaoka, Japan since 1977

"Johnny Appleseed"

September 26th marks the birthday of American folk hero Johnny Appleseed.

His real name was John Chapman and he was born on Sept. 26, 1774 in Massachusetts.

In the late 1780's, he set out alone in a canoe to plant orchards of apple trees along the frontier. Everywhere he went, he gave settlers and pioneers apple seeds and saplings to take home to plant in their own orchards. He traveled all over Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, refusing to sleep indoors, planting thousands of apple trees throughout the Midwest.

Johnny Appleseed is described as honest, deeply religious, and with a sense of humor. He quickly became a popular folk hero in the region, and is said to have worn a tin pot as a hat, a coffee sack as a shirt, and no shoes. He died March 18, 1845 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and is buried there at Archer Cemetery. His grave has been designated a national historic landmark.

There is a Johnny Appleseed Festival (Johnny Appleseed Park) held the third full weekend of September.