Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Scout is one of the two cats at Hyde Brothers Books in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was hard at work, guarding the store's rear entrance!

Hyde Brothers is an incredible locally-owned used book store on Wells Street in Fort Wayne. As long as I can remember, they've always had at least one cat in residence.

9-21-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The front window of Warren Pharmacy, a locally owned drugstore on Wayne Street (State Road 5) in the small town of Warren, Indiana.

The window has two paper American flags, some advertisements for products sold in the store, and several signs advertising local events and churches.

10-16-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This old farmhouse was on Lower Huntington Road, just northeast of the intersection of Lower Huntington and Airport Expressway in southeast Allen County, Indiana. Several silos stood behind the house and there used to be a bunch of old derelict cars and trucks in the yard.

The house was demolished in January, 2021. They knocked down the walls and let the intact roof fall on the ground! I photographed this place several times over the years after it was abandoned. This photograph was made on a very foggy autumn morning.

9-30-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This frog-shaped rock watches over the entrance to the Heidelberg Materials limestone quarry on Ardmore Avenue in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

This rock is famous in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Decades ago (nobody can remember when...it was there when my parents were kids) someone realized that this large rock looked like a frog, and painted it green, with eyes and a yellow belly. At that time, the rock sat along Sandpoint Road, behind the quarry. Over the years it kept being repainted whenever the old paint began to wear.

No one knows who kept repainting it over the years, but eventually the quarry's management began to actively maintain it. The appearance changes a bit with each paint job. Once, when I was in high school, some kids painted it orange, with the label "Acid Frog" adorning the side of it! It soon reverted to the traditional green.

In the summer of 2012, the quarry's management had the Frog moved to a location next to the quarry's main entrance on Ardmore Avenue. The quarry had bought the part of Sandpoint Road where the Frog had been located, and they closed the road so that the quarry could expand. Because the Frog was a beloved local landmark, the company decided to preserve it.

The quarry has changed names and owners several times since the frog was first painted. In my lifetime, it has been May Stone and Sand, France Stone, Hanson Aggregates, and now Heidelberg Materials. The Frog has been there longer than any of them!

11-5-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Because agriculture is so important to the economy of rural Indiana, a lot of our small towns have one or more grain elevators; but I have never seen one like this one in the small town of Warren, Indiana.

There is an old glass and metal walk-in telephone booth mounted on an assembly of overhead pipes that dispense grain to railcars that pull in on the railroad tracks that run alongside the facility. I don't know what the phone booth is for, but I assume it contains controls for the system that pumps the grain from the silos.

The grain elevator, which belongs to a company called Commodity Blenders, is located on the east side of Wayne Street, just south of the railroad tracks a few blocks north of Warren's 'downtown' area.

10-16-23

 

[Rich1950]

Chris

I really like your photos of the Ft. Wayne area. Its not an area easy to photograph but you do it very well.

My wife and I spent Feb to July 2023 in nearby Valparaiso so I’m familiar with the area. You capture the essence of Northern Indiana perfectly. The surrounding cities like South Bend have that gritty blue collar feel. There are also farm towns and flat fields edged with woods.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This house had the most unusual Christmas tree that I've ever seen. The tree in the house's front yard was decorated with plastic skulls, alongside traditional Christmas lights! They also had an inflatable Mickey Mouse Santa Claus next to the tree.

This was on the corner of Taylor Street and Thompson Avenue in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

12-10-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A panoramic photograph of the Elzey Building on Lower Huntington Road, just west of Old Trail Road, in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana. The oldest part of the building was built in 1925, just a couple of years after Waynedale was founded. A later addition, built to seamlessly match the original building, was added in 1950.

The west end of the building is the Hook and Ladder Tavern, which has been there as long as I can remember. Next to it is Landing Zone Coffee, occupying the former Waynedale Bakery space. The vacant storefront next to the coffee shop has had several short-lived businesses over the years; most recently it was Barb's Variety Shop. On the east end of the building is Summit City Dance Academy, which has been there since I was a child. My sister took dance lessons there when we were kids.

Waynedale was founded by Abner Elzey in the 1920s, and in 1957 the residents voted to join the city of Fort Wayne. Though Waynedale has been part of Indiana's second largest city for more than 50 years (longer than it was an independent town), it still looks and feels like a small town. Lower Huntington Road is Waynedale's "Main Street."

11-3-23

 

[JoeV]

How did you make this panoramic photo, Chris?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

How did you make this panoramic photo, Chris?

A longtime RFF member who passed away several years ago gave me a Horizon 202, a Russian swinging lens panoramic camera shortly before he died. I didn't do a lot with it at first, but I recently began using it again.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This fire hydrant is on the northeast corner of Wayne Street (State Road 5) and 3rd Street in the small town of Warren, Indiana. A baseball fan has painted the Chicago Cubs name and logo on the front of it!

The Cubs are very popular in northeast Indiana.

10-16-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Chris

I really like your photos of the Ft. Wayne area. Its not an area easy to photograph but you do it very well.

My wife and I spent Feb to July 2023 in nearby Valparaiso so I’m familiar with the area. You capture the essence of Northern Indiana perfectly. The surrounding cities like South Bend have that gritty blue collar feel. There are also farm towns and flat fields edged with woods.

Rich,

Sorry it took me so long to respond. Thanks for the compliments. I never found it hard, but this is home, so I know the area and the culture well. I find photographing in far away places harder. That's unlike most photographers around here, who find the area boring and travel long distances to photograph mountains and deserts!

South Bend, Fort Wayne, Most of the area near the Lake Michigan shore....these are all heavily industrialized places. Less so now; much of Indiana, like the US generally, has been partly deindustrialized. Farming is still big in northern and central Indiana, where the land is relatively flat. That flatness is what many find boring, but there is a lot of beauty in the landscape if you look for it.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This early 1950s International Harvester R-Series pickup truck was decorated to look like Sir Tow Mater, a character from the Pixar movie "Cars." It also had a red nose and antlers, since I photographed it a couple of days before Christmas.

The truck was sitting next to Vintage Blessed General Store, an antique store on the corner of Main Street (State Road 9) and Jackson Street in the small town of Columbia City, Indiana.

12-23-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

An old walk-in telephone booth stands on the sidewalk in front of a house on Wayne Street (State Road 5), between 3rd Street and 4th Street, in the small town of Warren, Indiana. Public telephones have become very rare; and these walk-in phone booths are even less common.

Interestingly, the telephone inside this phone booth does not accept money! Local calls on it are free. This is the last telephone booth in Warren, unless you count the phone booth mounted on the grain elevator silo a few blocks north of this one.

I also made a photograph of the inside of the phone booth.

10-16-23

 

[gb hill]

Every time I drive past this little white house on Covington Road in Fort Wayne, the wind is blowing this big flag across the front door of the house. A visitor would have to walk through the flag to get to the steps!

I made these photographs yesterday afternoon.

I was thinking they must not want any visitors.

 

[gb hill]

This early 1950s International Harvester R-Series pickup truck was decorated to look like Sir Tow Mater, a character from the Pixar movie "Cars." It also had a red nose and antlers, since I photographed it a couple of days before Christmas.

The truck was sitting next to Vintage Blessed General Store, an antique store on the corner of Main Street (State Road 9) and Jackson Street in the small town of Columbia City, Indiana.

12-23-23

You don’t see Pepsi machines like that anymore.

 

[gb hill]

Cell phones killed the pay phone, but long before that happened, the walk-in phone booth disappeared in favor of non-enclosed pay phones. This beat-up old phone booth on Broadway may be the last one left in Fort Wayne. I have not seen another in the city in many years!

This phone booth stands by the sign post in front of Whutnots & Doodads Secondhand Merchandise.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t the last one standing in the USA. I always liked the London phone booths.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I wouldn’t be surprised if it weren’t the last one standing in the USA. I always liked the London phone booths.

That one in Fort Wayne you commented on IS gone now! It disappeared in 2016. I photographed it in 2012.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The inside of the old walk-in telephone booth stands on the sidewalk on Wayne Street (State Road 5), between 3rd Street and 4th Street, in the small town of Warren, Indiana. Public telephones have become very rare; and these walk-in phone booths are even less common.

Interestingly, the telephone inside this phone booth does not accept money! The sign on the phone says that local calls on it are free. This is the last telephone booth in Warren, unless you count the phone booth mounted on the grain elevator silo a few blocks north of this one.

I also made a photograph of the outside of the phone booth.

10-16-23

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This 19th Century factory building is still in use today. Located on Growth Avenue off West Main Street in Fort Wayne, it is currently home to Ward Corporation, a metals foundry.

This was originally a textile factory called Wayne Knitting Mills. The chimney used to be quite a bit taller, and the company's full name was spelled out in bricks on the side of the smokestack. Because it was in bad condition, the top of the smokestack was removed sometime in the 1970s. At some point after I made this photograph, more of it was removed, leaving only the bottom three letters (LLS) intact.

This complex of industrial buildings is one of the few remnants of the huge factories that employed most of Fort Wayne's working people in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The big General Electric complex on Broadway is another, though it is no longer in operation and its future is uncertain.

11-30-23