The Story of Your House

When the National Trust for Historic Preservation recognizes your preservation efforts, you've arrived! Maybe Fort Wayne, IN is finally understanding how historic preservation can benefit a community. What would the news story have been had Electric Works been demolished?

City of Fort Wayne Government West Central Neighborhood ARCH, Inc. Indiana Landmarks Indiana DNR Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology Greater Fort Wayne Inc.

Development Puts Fort Wayne’s Historic Electric Works in New Light | National Trust for Historic Preservation A beacon on the skyline of Fort Wayne, Indiana since 1833, the Fort Wayne Electric Works campus jolts back to life with help from the National Trust Community Investment Company.

This neat building is finally getting some love! Got to see the building before work started. Just the improvements to its once very dark and scary basement are amazing. Looking forward to the final product.

Progress is happening at Flats on Main in Fort Wayne, Indiana! In May 2023, we performed a 3D scan, using a Matterport Pro3 camera, of the building to create a . This provided MKM architecture + design an existing floor plan and other vital details so they could begin designing the new interior spaces. Built in 1905 as the drug store and drug warehouse for J.C. Hutzell, Flats on Main will include eight, one-two bedroom units and first floor commercial spaces. On this day, paint was being sandblasted from the decorative metal cornice.


ARCH, Inc. Downtown Fort Wayne Indiana Landmarks City of Fort Wayne Government

Thanks for the Fort Wayne shoutout!

At one time, the neighborhood southeast of downtown Fort Wayne was home to many of the city’s Black residents. As the business district expanded following World War II, commercial buildings, offices, and parking lots claimed many of the area’s older houses. One unlikely survivor serves today as home of the African/African-American Historical Society Museum of Fort Wayne, founded in 2000 to share the cultural heritage of Africa and the achievements of Blacks locally and nationally.

Located at 436 E. Douglas Avenue, the duplex that houses the museum’s collection has its own story to tell. It is the only building still standing in Fort Wayne once listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans published between 1936 to 1967 to chronicle businesses safe to visit. Listed as “Mrs. B. Talbot’s Tourist Home,” the large Victorian residence offered shelter for Black travelers who were not welcomed in local, white-owned hotels.

The museum includes the area’s largest public collection of African art, as well as documents, photos, and artifacts highlighting Allen County’s Black and African American history from 1809 to present day. Read more about the museum, including how a recent grant is helping protect its collection: https://www.indianalandmarks.org/2023/04/grant-helps-african-american-history-museum-regain-momentum/

📸: Paul Hayden⁠

African/African-American Historical Society Museum of Fort Wayne Indiana

Progress continues on the IOOF building South Milford, Indiana.

ARCH, Inc. Indiana Historical Society Indiana Landmarks

Coming to a town near you... Join us in welcoming Coffee & Cream of South Milford to the Chamber membership! Like their page and follow their journey of converting some historic buildings into a Coffee House in the heart of South Milford.

I'm working on a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) building in South Milford, Indiana. Built in 1893 for IOOF Lodge No. 619, the first floor was used as a mercantile while the IOOF used the upper floor. In 1910, the Odd Fellows built an addition for a bank on the first floor and an expansion of the meeting hall.

Lodge No. 619 went defunct in 1969, but was inactive well before then. If anyone happens to know when they stopped meeting in this building, please let me know.

The first floor of the building is currently being rehabilitated as Coffee & Cream of South Milford. Check out their page for more on the extensive endeavor to bring life back to the only historic commercial building in South Milford.

Indiana Landmarks ARCH, Inc. Indiana Historical Society Indiana Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology

Great to see two area churches, Turner Chapel AME Church in Fort Wayne, and St. Peter's First Community Church in Huntington will be recipients of grant funding through Sacred Places and Lilly Endowment to help preserve historic churches.

ARCH, Inc. Indiana Historical Society Indiana Landmarks The History Center Huntington Alert Lilly Endowment, Inc.

Churches in Fort Wayne, Huntington to preserve history with grant So far, Sacred Places Indiana has worked with 43 churches around the state spanning 14 denominations.

Working with Gateway Community Church of Fortville, I recently submitted National Register of Historic Places nominations for the Fortville Methodist Episcopal Church and the Fortville Carnegie Library. The church, designed in the Gothic Revival style by Philip F. Jeckel and built in 1901, features pointed-arch windows and doorways, brick construction, window tracery, buttresses, and towers with pinnacles. The library, built in 1917, is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places for its association as a public library established with the assistance of grants from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, and as an excellent example of the Prairie and Craftsman styles of architecture.

Hoping for their official listing on the NRHP in about a year or so from now!




Indiana Historical Society Indiana Landmarks ARCH, Inc. Fortville-Vernon Township Public Library Indiana Department of Natural Resources

Happy to have played a part in putting these nominations together!



LaGrange Standard and News
Marion Ballas Wiggins

Volume 3 of a three-part podcast series by 99% Invisible on vernacular architecture is about house boats, the Bermuda roof, Queen Anne architecture in Oakland, CA, and a fight over "earth tones." Enjoy!

99% Vernacular: Volume 3 - 99% Invisible When you own a home, water is your greatest enemy. So much work is put into keeping water from coming in– and so much engineering is built into getting whatever water that inevitably seeps in, back out again before it pools and causes rot. 99% Invisible 99% Vernacular: Volume 1 Episode 500 99% Ver...

Volume 2 of a three-part podcast series by 99% Invisible on vernacular architecture discusses Chicago's wooden fire escapes, witch windows, grain silos, and lanais. Another fun and educational episode!

99% Vernacular: Volume 2 - 99% Invisible Chicago has an extensive alleyway network, populated with distinctively utilitarian wooden fire escapes bolted onto the backs of low- and mid-rise buildings. Though to call them fire escapes is almost a misnomer; they usually have a substantial landing at each floor, so they serve as a kind of de fa...