Some new photos from Fort Wayne

[KoNickon]

I've always thought "God bless America" a presumptuous phrase -- we don't get to tell God to do anything. "May God bless America" is more like it, a fervent prayer.

Anyway -- I continue to enjoy your pictures, Chris. I like how the chairs in #2774 lean in different directions!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I've always thought "God bless America" a presumptuous phrase -- we don't get to tell God to do anything. "May God bless America" is more like it, a fervent prayer.

Anyway -- I continue to enjoy your pictures, Chris. I like how the chairs in #2774 lean in different directions!

Lots of people around the world assume that God blesses their country/race/ethnic group, or that they're somehow favored by Him. We Americans are not unique in that way. I agree that asking him to bless us is better than demanding it!


The chairs are funny. The two plastic ones lean with the sloping ground, but the metal one leans the opposite direction!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is the former public school building in the small town of Spencerville, Indiana. The old school, located on the corner of Auburn Street (County Road 68) and County Road 55, is now home to a business called Schoohouse Enterprises.


I don't know when the school was built, or when it closed. I was able to find an old photograph of it that was made in 1900, so it was likely built sometime in the late 19th Century.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This is the east entrance to the historic 1871 covered bridge that carried County Road 68 over the Saint Joseph River just outside the small town of Spencerville, Indiana.


The bridge was closed in 2018 after it was discovered that parts of the bridge's wooden frame and deck are no longer strong enough to safely support automobile traffic. The Dekalb County government is planning to repair the bridge once funding is available. Long before the covered bridge closed, a modern concrete bridge was built next to it to allow for large trucks to travel on CR-68.


Indiana is known for its large number of well-preserved covered bridges, but most of them are in the southern part of the state. The Spencerville bridge is one of only a few covered bridges in northern Indiana.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Still working through my backlog of old work that needs scanning. I made this photograph of a man celebrating his win at a water gun game at the 2015 Three Rivers Festival in Fort Wayne, Indiana.


The festival is held every year in July at Headwaters Park in downtown Fort Wayne, though the 2020 festival was cancelled due to COVID-19.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A woman talking on her cellphone in front of the Ferris Wheel at the 2015 Three Rivers Festival.


Still working on my years-long backlog of film to edit.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A man walks past the Jefferson Township #5 Center School on Lincoln Highway (Old US-30) near Besancon, Indiana. I made this photo back in October, 2000; but just added it to my website.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

A wheelbarrow stands beside my neighbor's garage. This house is on Tyrone Road, north of Sandpoint Road, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This schoolhouse sits at a crossroads along Lincoln Highway (Old US-30) in Besancon, Indiana. I have returned to it many times over the years. I was rained on while I was setting up the camera to make this photograph!


I made this photograph in December, 2001.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Workers cleaning up at closing time at Coney Island, Fort Wayne's oldest restaurant. They've been in business in the same location for 107 years!

 

[ChipMcD]

Really nice, Chris. The nighthawks must have just left.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Really nice, Chris. The nighthawks must have just left.

There were only my son and I, and one other table of customers left when I shot the photo, and the other people left right after. Mack and I were the last of the 'nighthawks' to go!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This building is on the west side of Wells Street, between Huffman Street and Sixth Street, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There used to be a cellphone shop called PhD Wireless in the larger storefront, but it closed a few years before I made this photograph.


There is now a secondhand shop in the former PhD Wireless space. The smaller storefront used to be a tattoo shop called Bloodmoney Tattoo. It now has a sign for a Hispanic restaurant, but it was not open. It looks like there had been construction work going on inside, and there is a "Stop Work" order from the county building department on the door.


The sidewalk sofa disappeared a few days later. I photographed last August.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Lower Huntington Road is Waynedale's "Main Street." In this photograph, a man walks between Meyer's Barber Shop and the hook and Ladder Tavern, which is in the Elzey Building. Another longstanding Waynedale business, Imel Insurance, is also visible.


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.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This house was being moved from its original location near the road to a new foundation a couple hundred feet behind the original location. It is sitting on a frame of steel I-Beams on a large truck. The gravel in front of it is where the new foundation was being built.

The owner told me that it has been in her family for 160 years. The old foundation is crumbling and unsafe, and part of the house was in bad shape, so they cut off that part and moved the rest of the house. You can see on the right side of the house where the other section was removed.

This is on the north side of Ohio State Route 2, between the Indiana State Line and Casebeer-Miller Road (County Road #106), in rural Defiance County, Ohio. It is a couple miles southwest of Hicksville.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Storefronts on the west side of High Street in the small town of Hicksville, Ohio. High Street is the main commercial area of downtown Hicksville.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

The Welker Block is a century-old commercial building on the corner of Wells Street and Fourth Street in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

For many years, this building's two storefronts were home to Linda Lou's furniture, which closed in 2017. In the fall of 2018, the building was purchased by Shawna Nicelley, the owner of G.I. Joe's Army Surplus (also on Wells Street, a couple blocks north of the Welker Block). She renovated the building with the aim of attracting new businesses.

The smaller storefront on the left is a plant shop called The Honey Plant. The larger one is a video production company called Loft House Films. The building's second floor contains apartments.

The "Welker Block c. 1910" sign atop the building is new; it was added during the renovation. When I was young, the storefront on the left side of the building was a bar called the Happen Inn. It later became part of the furniture store.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This large roadside cross made of corrugated metal stands at the edge of a field on the west side of State Route 49, between Township Road 230 and Township Road 220, in rural Paulding County, Ohio.

It says: "Get Right With God."

There is an identical cross on US-30, about 20 miles south of here in Van Wert County, Ohio!

This is the one in Van Wert County.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

This barn with a giant smiley face painted on the roof stands on the north side of State Road 31, west of Redman Road, in rural Monroe County, New York. I photographed it back in September.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I made these photographs back in January, 2019. They are an abandoned farmhouse at the intersection of US-421 and County Road 700S, in rural LaPorte County, Indiana. It is about five miles north of the small town of Wanatah.