48 hours in Fort Wayne, Indiana (and 1.2 million reasons to go)

This unassuming Midwestern tourist destination has an epic genealogy center, a hip art scene, and a creative hub that's 'Disneyland for musicians.'

Fort Wayne, Indiana, has grown into something of an unexpected tourist destination located between Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis.

Mid-sized American cities are changing fast.

Not since the 1990s have these 250,000-to-500,000-person cities seen so much growth. You know the story: The industrial revolution brings people out of the country and into these Made in America manufacturing hubs. Each of these towns became small cities with their own vibrant downtowns that declined thanks to the introduction of suburban shopping malls, big box stores and, later, Amazon.

As manufacturing moved abroad, these towns struggled even more, and people seeking better jobs, higher education, or maybe even vibrant nightlife or coffee shops where they could engage in lively conversation, moved to cities and stayed there. 

Chain O’ Lakes is a popular state park 40 minutes outside Fort Wayne that allows people to kayak between nine lakes that are connected by these small channels.

But now these cities are just too full, too expensive, too chaotic. People (and their employers) are redistributing themselves — along with their ideas, their enthusiasm, and their disposable income — to the Bentonvilles, the Tulsas, the Kansas Citys, which have lower taxes, (more) affordable housing and (slightly) less traffic.

That attracts remote workers, artists and makers who are willing to pay $5 for a cortado and pay a little extra to shop at a local business instead of Walmart. (What an irony in Bentonville.) 

Fort Wayne was a manufacturing hub for decades, but many building were empty or in disrepair before a revitalization effort that started more than a decade ago.

This kind of revitalization is hard to miss if you spend any amount of time on the road, and it’s on full display in Fort Wayne, which is tucked in the middle of the triangle of Detroit, Chicago, and Indianapolis.

With 267,000 people, it’s the regional center for the northeast corner of the state and has become an electric mid-sized city full of good food, creative people, and, of course, an epic industrial reuse project. You’ll find breweries, vibrant murals, progressive art, outdoor festivals, and even things like urban kayaking. 

You’ll find dozens of colored murals throughout downtown Fort Wayne, including this one that celebrates Pontiac Street, which has long been a hub of Black culture in the city.

I didn’t know any of this before I got an invite from the local and state tourism boards to go on a media trip built around a visit to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, which has more than 1.2 million pieces of family history research materials. (That experience was so grand that I’m publishing a story focused on the family research center in the next couple of days.)

These trips are meant to showcase the best of any particular region, and over just a few days, you experience the highlights of what makes a place worth visiting. I wanted to share those recommendations with you, just in case you have a chance to spend a couple of days there.

Fort Wayne’s original downtown blocks are called The Landing, where you’ll find a number of eye-catching murals and noteworthy restaurants.

• You can’t skip a stroll down The Landing, the city’s historic downtown district along Columbia street not far from the river. In the past decade, a public-private partnership led to a total revitalization of these two blocks in the heart of the city. You’ll find a string of top-notch restaurants, including an upscale Thai restaurant called NAWA and an Asian-Mexican fusion restaurant called Mercado, as well as Gnometown Brewing Co., an extension of the popular Happy Gnome brewery nearby. Other spots on Fort Wayne’s best-of lists: Proximo, Chance Bar, Tolon, and Copper Spoon.

• Fort Wayne is home to the musician mecca of Sweetwater, an online music store with a sprawling headquarters that includes a 3,500-seat pavilion, a recording studio, a music school, a cafe, and the country’s largest brick-and-mortar music store. If you have a musician in your life, they probably know about Sweetwater, which employs some 3,000 people in the area, but perhaps they didn’t know that you can take a pilgrimage there.

Julie Wall grew up in Fort Wayne, left for college, and returned to open a printmaking and hands-on arts workshop called The Hedge.

• Stop by The Hedge, a printmaking shop on the edge of downtown where Julie Wall teaches printmaking and other arts classes. She has a small shop where you can shop her thoughtfully designed goods, but I think the hands-on part of this space is what is most attractive. Plan your trip around a class you want to take. 

The Fort Wayne Museum of Art has one of the largest collections of glass sculptures in the country.

• The Fort Wayne Museum of Art has one of the country’s largest collections of glass art, including pieces that are absolutely a spectacle to see in person. Next door is the thriving theater that is home to the Fort Wayne Ballet, which has brought classic and original productions to Fort Wayne since the 1950s. 

The colorful Bradley hotel is a boutique hotel in downtown Fort Wayne from Vera Bradley, who is known for her brightly colored handbags and luggage.

• The hottest hotel in town is The Bradley, from Vera Bradley co-founder Barbara Baekgaard, who helped launch those famous luggage and handbags in eye-catching fabrics back in the early 1980s in Fort Wayne. This hotel has their design fingerprints all over it, including prints from Julie Wall. Make sure you grab a drink at the rooftop bar, Birdies. 

The Oyster Bar in Fort Wayne opened in 1888.

• One of the oldest restaurants in town is called The Oyster Bar. It’s as bustling and old school as it gets. I heard good things about Cindy’s Diner, too, a staple and a classic for a quick bite downtown that has moved several times but looks like it time-traveled from the 1960s. For a sophisticated sweet, grab an ice cream cone at Brooklyn Pints or a berry tart from Connor’s, which is on the top floor of the Hampton Inn and overlooks the minor league ballpark. 

Three rivers convene in Fort Wayne, and you can explore them via kayaks or a guided boat tour.

• Fort Wayne has always had a river running through its downtown, but only in the past decade have people had the chance to rent kayaks to explore the city from the water. In addition to kayaks, the Fort Wayne Outfitters & Bike Depot, housed in the old train depot, also rents bikes for the 26-mile Rivergreenway Trail that connects Fort Wayne and the suburb of New Haven. You can also take a boat ride on the Sweet Breeze to explore the three rivers that converge on the eastern edge of downtown. 

  

• Plan to take a day trip to Chain O’ Lakes, a series of small lakes that are connected by quiet little channels of water, just deep enough for a kayak or stand up paddleboard. You can paddle five miles through all nine lakes over the course of a day, but lots of people only paddle between a few of them. This state park has lots of campsites and cabins that fill up quickly in the summer, but it’s only 40 minutes from Fort Wayne. Other day trip stops in the area might include Warsaw Cut Glass, Two EE’s Winery and the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.

Electric Works, the former home of General Electric, where Austin’s famed moontowers were built, is a former manufacturing facility that is being renovated for a mixed-use project.

• Back in Fort Wayne, it’s worth checking out the Electric Works campus, where Austin’s famed moontowers were born, that is being renovated into a massive multi-use project with a food hall, office space, apartments, a community gathering hub, and event spaces galore.

So, if you find yourself traveling through northeast Indiana — perhaps to check out the cicadas or explore the Great Lakes this summer — plan to spend a couple of days in Fort Wayne. These off-the-radar spots become tourist destinations in the first place because they have a lot to offer people who live there. That’s what tourists are seeking anyway, right? A taste of what makes someone else’s home so special.

I’m about to experience a whole lot of that because on Saturday, I’m leaving for Prague, Copenhagen and Sweden for an ancestry trip that will involve not one but two family reunions with people my American family lost touch with a hundred years ago.

I love writing from the road — like that trip to Spain a year ago when I shared stories about Salvador Dali and AI , the beauty of bilingualism, and that epic day at the Gulliver’s Travels park in Valencia — so look for at least one piece from Scandinavia. (Or maybe Prague! I’m going to visit Mel and Dave from Strong Sense of Place, who left Austin in 2014 to build an ex-pat life in Europe.)

I hope that you all are having a wonderful week and, as always, thank you so much for the support that makes this Substack possible.

Vi ses snart,

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