Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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An American flag hangs under the sign on the side of Billy's Dugout, a small neighborhood sports bar on the corner of Fairfield Avenue and Kinsmoor Avenue on the south side of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
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This is the back door of Waynedale Plumbing Supply. The hand-painted sign over the door says "Walkin Door." Customers often park behind the building and enter through the back door. When you go in, you walk through the workshop in the back of the store where owner Virgil Hoke repaired faucets and other plumbing equipment and fabricated parts when needed.

Waynedale Plumbing Supply has been in this building since 1946, when the store's original owner, Charles Schmidt, built it. In 1950, it was bought by Virgil and Homer Hoke. Homer died in 2011, but Virgil still operates the store by himself. The store's appearance, inside and outside, has changed very little in the 68 years that the Hokes have owned it.

The store is located on the corner of Lower Huntington Road and Bradbury Avenue in the Waynedale area of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
Chris,

Thanks for these. It's a very good thing to document these vanishing institutions in our towns and cities. I've done some of that type of photography in my area and am often surprised when the subjects disappear quickly afterwards or before I get around to them. I noticed on a cross country trip earlier this year that main street businesses seem to have fared better in the midwest than here in the Boston-Washington Megapolis.

Chip
 
ChipMcD said:
Chris,

Thanks for these. It's a very good thing to document these vanishing institutions in our towns and cities. I've done some of that type of photography in my area and am often surprised when the subjects disappear quickly afterwards or before I get around to them. I noticed on a cross country trip earlier this year that main street businesses seem to have fared better in the midwest than here in the Boston-Washington Megapolis.

Chip
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I think big cities are worse off than small towns, even here in the midwest. Fort Wayne is Indiana's second largest city, with about 275,000 people. Fort Wayne's downtown has been a ghost town for decades. All the downtown local shops closed years ago, replaced by chain stores in the malls and suburban shopping centers. The city has been trying to revitalize downtown, and a lot of new businesses, are opening, but they're almost all restaurants and bars.

Waynedale is a little different. It is a neighborhood on the southwestern edge of Fort Wayne. Its in the city, having been annexed in 1957; but before that Waynedale was an independent small town. It still looks like a small town, and has a much larger concentration of old-time small local businesses than any other part of the city. Waynedale is the only part of Fort Wayne that was once a small town.

Unfortunately, Waynedale's small businesses are almost all owned by very old people like Virgil Hoke, who are retiring or dying, and most of them do not have any family wanting to take over the business after they retire. Virgil has no kids, but he has nieces and nephews and none want it.
 
Thanks for the plumbing shop series. Your photos let us see a traditional small town business that's becoming increasingly rare. As always, your work is carefully done and insightful. Thanks again for sharing.
 
presspass said:
Thanks for the plumbing shop series. Your photos let us see a traditional small town business that's becoming increasingly rare. As always, your work is carefully done and insightful. Thanks again for sharing.
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Thanks. I have a few more photos of the plumbing shop to post this week. I love documenting places like that and the people who run them. Its a part of our history and culture that is often forgotten and overlooked, but it deserves to be remembered.
 
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Homer's Desk

A while back, I posted a portrait of Virgil Hoke, the 84 year old owner of Waynedale Plumbing Supply, sitting at his desk behind the counter.

There is a second desk sitting right next to Virgil's, which was his older brother Homer's desk. Homer and Virgil bought the store from its original owner in 1950 and ran it together until Homer died in 2011. I don't think Virgil has moved much on his brother's desk since then.
 
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This sunflower is one of a long row of them growing on the edge of a field on State Road 101, south of Woodburn in rural Allen County, Indiana.

This is the first of two photographs that I made of this flower. The sun came out just a few seconds after I made this photograph.
 
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Here's the second photograph that I made of the sunflower on State Road 101. This was done just seconds after the first one, but looks very different because the sun came out and the clouds began to open up to reveal the blue sky.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
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Here's the outside of Waynedale Plumbing Supply, the little plumbing shop whose owner has worked there for 68 years. I've posted a lot of photos of the inside recently, and I have a few more to go. It has a For Sale sign in the front window because the owner wants to sell it and retire.
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Chris, this is my favorite of everything you've posted in this thread. I often feel that your photos have mostly shown details, like the sign on the side of a building, rather than the whole building. With this image, I like seeing where the building is situated. I feel like it gives me a much better sense of what Ft. Wayne is really like. Thanks for posting it. :)
 
Jamie Pillers said:
Chris, this is my favorite of everything you've posted in this thread. I often feel that your photos have mostly shown details, like the sign on the side of a building, rather than the whole building. With this image, I like seeing where the building is situated. I feel like it gives me a much better sense of what Ft. Wayne is really like. Thanks for posting it. :)
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Thanks, Jamie. This is really different than most of Fort Wayne. Waynedale used to be a small town before it was swallowed up by the city, and it still looks like a small town. There's really nothing like this anywhere else in Ft. Wayne. When it closes, the loss will be great :(
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Thanks, Jamie. This is really different than most of Fort Wayne. Waynedale used to be a small town before it was swallowed up by the city, and it still looks like a small town. There's really nothing like this anywhere else in Ft. Wayne. When it closes, the loss will be great :(
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The Waynedale Plumbing store photo reminds me of the work of William Christenberry... the images he made in the South.
 
Is that WWII fighter plane model on Homer's desk a P-51? It has the earlier greenhouse style canopy, not the later bubble canopy. Was Homer a WWII USAAF pilot? I think you said earlier that Virgil was not a WWII veteran, having been too young.

Thanks for sharing your work, what a wonderful chronicle you are creating.
 
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In August, 2018, Sears announced that they were closing their store at Glebrook Square Mall in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I made this photograph a few days ago.

This store, which was one of Glenbrook's original stores when the mall opened in 1966, is the last Sears store in Fort Wayne. The other one, located at Southtown Mall, closed in 2002, shortly before Southtown was closed and demolished.

Sears is one of the oldest companies in the United States, and was once the largest retailer. In recent years, the dying company has been closing stores at a rapid pace. They've been unable to weather competition from discounters like Walmart and online stores.

It is a shame to see Sears in this condition. My family shopped there all the time when I was young. I still have some Sears Craftsman tools that my father bought for me when I was younger, and he still has some he bought in the 1970s. They were great tools, but sears moved production to China several years ago and we quit buying.
 
Yes, I remember those early, great tools. Sadly, I also remember when a Sears garage in Calgary charged me $$$ for work that hadn't been done. Thanks for the picture.
 
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This house is on Rohman Road, just east of Bruick Road, in rural Allen County, Indiana. A hand-painted American flag in a wooden frame hangs in the front window.

The little sign behind the flowers in front of the house says: "Bless This House."
 
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