Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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My third photograph of an auto parts store in the small town of Kendallville, Indiana. The stools in front of the counter look like giant Monroe shock absorbers!

I remember seeing stools like this at auto parts stores in Fort Wayne when I was young, before the big chains came in and ran the local places out of business.
 
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The last photograph of Kendallville Auto Parts, the small town store that I photographed back in November. They have an old manual key grinding machine next to the counter, and an old-style Pepsi vending machine.
 
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This is the former Town Hall building in Middle Point, Ohio. The building on Adams Street was also used in the past as a fire station. The current Municipal Building is a former bank located next to this building.

Middle Point is a small town in Van Wert County. It is called Middle Point because it is halfway between the town of Van Wert and the town of Delphos. Van Wert is in the center of Van Wert County, and Delphos is on the eastern edge of the county.
 
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A funnel ball goal stands in front of the main screen at the Van-Del Drive-In Theatre in Van Wert County, Ohio. The theatre is located about a mile north of the small town of Middle Point on the corner of Lincoln Highway(County Road 418) and Middle Point Wentzel Road (County Road 185).

The Van-Del's name has the same origin as that of the nearby town of Middle Point. It is about half way between the town of Van Wert and the town of Delphos.
 
Today is the 98th anniversary of the founding of Waynedale, Indiana. I grew up in Waynedale and still live there today.

Originally a small town, it became part of the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana's second largest city, in 1957. Although Waynedale has been part of a large city longer than it was an independent small town, it still looks like, and has the culture of, a small town!

I have been photographing Waynedale for more than 20 years. I have posted many photographs of Waynedale in this thread over the years, but the link below lets you see them all in one place.

http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-results.php?category=13
 
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This is the Middle Point Municipal Building, the town hall, in Middle Point, Ohio. The building on Adams Street is a former bank located next to the former town hall building.

Interestingly, I have seen a lot of small towns in the midwestern United States that use a former bank building as the headquarters of the town government.
 
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The Dutch Mill is an abandoned gas station, restaurant, and bar on the corner of Lincoln Highway (County Road 418) and Ridge Spur (County Road 183) in rural Van Wert County, Ohio. It is about a mile north of the small town of Middle Point.

Part of the building is shaped like a Dutch windmill.
 
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This basketball hoop is on the back of the old Middle Point School building on Normal Street in the small town of Middle Point, Ohio.

The school was built in 1885 as a teachers college. in 1906, the college closed and the school became a public school serving the town's children. The building now sits abandoned.
 
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This vacant building is on Adams Street, between Railroad Street and South Street, in Middle Point, Ohio.

The building was built in 1909 by The Improved Order Of Red Men, a fraternal organization whose white members dressed up as Native Americans for their meetings. The gable stone near the top of the building says it was built by "The Bright Horn Tribe, #178."

Middle Point also has a former Odd Fellows building, a block north of the Red Men building. I find it interesting that many tiny midwestern towns were once able to support multiple fraternal organizations like the Red Men, the Odd Fellows, and the Freemasons.

One of the two vacant storefronts on the first floor was once a bar called the Fun House, which has relocated to a new building on Adams Street a couple of blocks north of this one.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
van-del-theatre-1.jpg



A funnel ball goal stands in front of the main screen at the Van-Del Drive-In Theatre in Van Wert County, Ohio. The theatre is located about a mile north of the small town of Middle Point on the corner of Lincoln Highway(County Road 418) and Middle Point Wentzel Road (County Road 185).

The Van-Del's name has the same origin as that of the nearby town of Middle Point. It is about half way between the town of Van Wert and the town of Delphos.
Click to expand...

Chris,

This is another extraordinary shot. Very nicely done. The passing of drive-ins is another sadness.

Chip
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
middlepoint-redmen.jpg



This vacant building is on Adams Street, between Railroad Street and South Street, in Middle Point, Ohio.

The building was built in 1909 by The Improved Order Of Red Men, a fraternal organization whose white members dressed up as Native Americans for their meetings. The gable stone near the top of the building says it was built by "The Bright Horn Tribe, #178."

Middle Point also has a former Odd Fellows building, a block north of the Red Men building. I find it interesting that many tiny midwestern towns were once able to support multiple fraternal organizations like the Red Men, the Odd Fellows, and the Freemasons.

One of the two vacant storefronts on the first floor was once a bar called the Fun House, which has relocated to a new building on Adams Street a couple of blocks north of this one.
Click to expand...


I think that fraternal lodges were much more popular in times and places when and where there was much less to entertain us and break up the daily routine. These organizations got folks out of the house for a few hours of an evening. Many had salutary purposes to improve their members and communities. Now we have the internet with endless variety and less human contact. Maybe the latter is why we show up at RFF.
 
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Grovertown United Methodist Church is a little white church on the corner of Elm Street and Ohio Street in the small town of Grovertown, Indiana.

Grovertown is a tiny village just north of US-30 in rural Starke County.
 
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This building was built in 1902 for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge 665, in the small town of Middle Point, Ohio. The building is now vacant.

A couple days ago, I posted a photograph of the Improved Order of Red Men building in Middle Point. A lot of these small towns had multiple fraternal organizations in the early 20th Century.

ChipMcD said:
I think that fraternal lodges were much more popular in times and places when and where there was much less to entertain us and break up the daily routine. These organizations got folks out of the house for a few hours of an evening. Many had salutary purposes to improve their members and communities. Now we have the internet with endless variety and less human contact. Maybe the latter is why we show up at RFF.
Click to expand...

As ChipMcD said yesterday, these groups were likely the only entertainment available in small towns 100 years ago.
 
ptpdprinter said:
The buildings are identical. I guess you ordered them through the Sears, Roebuck catalog.
Click to expand...




Not totally identical, but very similar in design.


They used to sell prefabricated houses through the Sears catalog; they came as a kit that the owner had to assemble (or pay a builder to do so, which is what most probably did).
 
van-del-theatre-2.jpg




I've been sick for the last couple weeks, finally feeling up to working again.

Here's a photograph that I made on a foggy morning last month at the Van-Del Drive-In Theatre outside the small town of Middle Point, Ohio.
 
So many intresting, simple and not so simple buildings.
In our town they just voted for three tall buildings. 31 stories and slightly less.
It is bad. IMO.
 
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