In honor of National Historic Preservation Month, local historian Karen Richards is presenting the final installment of ARCH, Inc.’s annual lecture series titled, Celebrating 50 Years of ARCH.
This event takes place May 17, in the Cinema Center’s Spectator Lounge.
ARCH was formed in 1975, Richards notes, out of a push by Fort Wayne’s Bicentennial Commission to save the last remaining structure from the city’s Wabash and Erie Canal era.
Here WBOI’s Julia Meek discusses the organization’s evolution with Richards, challenges that lie ahead and what her look at “Significant Saves from Five Decades of Historic Preservation” will include.
Event Information:
Celebrating 50 Years of ARCH: Significant Saves
from Five Decades of Historic Preservation
At Fort Wayne Cinema Center
Saturday, May 17
Admission is free
1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The Forest Park Boulevard Home and Garden Tour is June 21. Find information at the ARCH, Inc. website.
Below is a transcript of the conversation:
Julia Meek: Karen Richards, welcome.
Karen Richards: Thank you, Julia.
Julia Meek: So, your upcoming lecture topic is Celebrating 50 Years of ARCH.
Karen Richards: Yes.
Julia Meek: And that stands for five decades of preservation. Congratulations on it. And Karen, what does that mean right here, right now?
Karen Richards: The whole purpose of this lecture is to let people know how Historic Preservation has enhanced their lives and their community in Fort Wayne over the last 50 years.
So, it's a celebration of all of our saves, or at least the significant ones that I have time to talk about and how that really has made this a better community.
Julia Meek: In a word, how has it made us a better community?
Karen Richards: You know, I think the three takeaways that I took from putting this lecture together, number one, historic preservation.
It makes your property worth more money. It enhances economic development. It really makes your city money. For instance, think of how different downtown would be if we did not have the landing.
The landing spurred downtown development. Without it, our downtown development would have been much different. The second takeaway is that the things you preserve from your history make you so unique and so special.
And it sets us apart from other communities. And we have so many special things that we have saved.
The third thing, I think, is that it really takes a village to preserve something, just like it takes a village to do so many other things.
But the number of people who have stepped up over these last 50 years to work with ARCH to preserve buildings was a lot more than what I ever thought. And I think that then says something about how we go forward.
Julia Meek: How we have done it is how we're going to do it?
Karen Richards: Yes.
Julia Meek: And as a matter of fact, Karen, you will be diving into the signature architectural saves from this half a century of really hard preservation work.
A word on the state of our historic architecture at that time. What was the issue of that day? Prevention or problem solving beause prevention hadn't happened yet?
Karen Richards: You know, I think it was a little bit of both. I think what really spurred all of this was the Bicentennial. ARCH was actually born out of the Bicentennial Commission.
And the Bicentennial Commission, one of the things that they did was to save the Canal House, which is located on Superior Street, which is our last physical connection to that era when the canal was our main source of transportation.
Julia Meek: Which was actually one of our earliest historical settlement events.
Karen Richards: Yes. That's what settled Fort Wayne.
So, at that point, I think everybody came to realize that there was no organization whose mission was to jump in, roll up their sleeves, gather community support and save some of our really important historical features.
So, we were actually born out of the Bicentennial Commission and the need to save the Canal House
Julia Meek: And in our case, in our community, our founding fathers actually built a lot of parks and public architecture into the city's foundations for these very points. What kind of an advantage did, and does that strategy carry with it, the fact that they had that insight?
Karen Richards: You know, you would be surprised at the number of neighborhoods, historic neighborhoods, that grew up because of or in conjunction with our park system.
There was kind of a beautification movement that started many, many, many, many years ago, and we had several landscape architects come to Fort Wayne and help us plan our park and Boulevard system.
The neighborhood that's our tour this summer, Forest Park Boulevard, is one of those. Lakeside Park is another one of those neighborhoods.
There's several of them and historic architecture and our park system and our boulevard system go hand in hand.
Julia Meek: So, what kind of remnants are still around that we might go find if we were trying to find something?
Karen Richards: All you have to do is look at neighborhoods. Lakeside is a perfect example. When Lakeside was developed, Lakeside Park was developed right after those lots were platted.
And it was a drawing point for people to buy lots in that neighborhood. The fact that a boulevard exists was the same reason that Forest Park Boulevard drew the kind of people to build homes there that it did.
So, ARCH through a grant from Arts United is about ready to put on our website three self-guided walking tours. You'll be able to take your cell phone, download this stuff, and go out and walk.
And the three neighborhoods we're starting out with are Lakeside, Forest Park Boulevard and North Anthony.
Julia Meek: So, folks will really get the actual picture of exactly what we are talking about right now.
Karen Richards: Absolutely. Absolutely, and they'll be able to do it on their own time, whenever they feel like it, in whatever increments they feel like doing it in.
Julia Meek: Perfect, and okay, Karen, "Signature Saves through 50 Years." First of all, what makes a structure signature and that save significant?
Karen Richards: I think the general rule of thumb is a place is significant if it either involved an event of historical significance, a person of historical significance, an activity of historical significance.
So the canal house is significant because it was associated with the Wabash Erie Canal. Other homes are significant because of who built them and who lived there. That's what makes them significant.
Or for some, an event would have taken place there, or a business would have been located there. Even a bridge can be historically significant.
Julia Meek: And so, how did you narrow it down to a workable list of considerations?
Karen Richards: I think I'm going to focus on 10 or 11. I start out with the Canal House, obviously, because that's why ARCH was formed.
Then we had a series of almost experiments, like pilot programs, like, Can we do this? Can we make this happen? One of those was the Edsall House on Main Street. That was a pilot project of ours.
That house was going to be torn down, and that is the oldest house in downtown Fort Wayne. That house dates to about 1839 and Edsall was one of the founding fathers of Fort Wayne as well.
We pitched in, got help from lots of people, and now it's a realtor's organization that has their offices there. But that was going to be demolished for a parking lot or for an apartment complex that goes with the Edsall House Apartments.
Then there were a couple of homes. And I don't know if you remember the era in the 1980s when we actually moved houses? So, two of the houses that we moved, I'm going to feature.
An example of a home that is important because of who lived there is the McCulloch house on Superior Street. And although we didn't save it in exactly its most pristine form, it is indeed saved.
That was the home of Hugh McCulloch. He was the Secretary of the Treasury, first under Abraham Lincoln, and is actually the father of our modern banking system. So, there's a whole lot.
I'm going to talk about the home of Fort Wayne's first elected mayor, that, again, is significant, not only because of its architectural style, but because of who lived there.
Homes can be significant for lots of reasons, or they can just be an amazing piece of architecture.
Julia Meek: Speaking of that, everyone has a sense of place. We here in Fort Wayne do feel like we have an above average amount of history happening here, certainly a long history and a lot of significant architecture. Is that true?
Karen Richards: I think we have an amazing amount. The challenge is always to proceed with development while you still save enough of our past to make us unique.
One of the things Fort Wayne prides itself on are our neighborhoods, and we have an abundance of historic neighborhoods. And that's what we try to do with our Home Tours.
One year we do the south side of Fort Wayne. So last year was South Wayne, this year's Forest Park Boulevard. We have so many neighborhoods on the National Register, and people take great pride in their neighborhoods.
There are so many special things about historic neighborhoods. But I think one thing that's true that draws people to them is that people tend to be more neighborly in historic neighborhoods.
You know, and I think it has to do with front porches and living close to one another and sharing the same concept of what your neighborhood should look like. And it's also the challenge of keeping old things in good repair and up to speed.
I think it brings people together. And you hear all the time about neighborhood get togethers and block parties and things like that in older neighborhoods, and that's one of the reasons people like to live in older neighborhoods.
Julia Meek: And this is all a part of our community's push to continue to be known as the city that saved itself. We're proud of that distinction, and the strides we are taking as a place where people like to live is another legit accomplishment. How does preservation sweeten these deals?
Karen Richards: I think because of its uniqueness. I mean, Fort Wayne has a fascinating history.
I don't think people realize how many things happened for the first time here, how many amazing neighborhoods we have, and that does indeed draw people to this city. It makes them livable, and it makes them diverse.
Not everybody wants to live in the suburbs. Some people love old homes and like the uniqueness. They like the quality, they like the detail, the woodwork, all different kinds of things like that. And it gives us different housing options.
If you only have suburban housing options, you're going to cut down on the number and kinds of people that are going to live in your city. Some people want to live in a neighborhood where you can walk to things.
Where you can walk to a bar, you can walk to a restaurant, you can walk to a liquor store, a grocery store, a drug store. And that's one of the things that makes older neighborhoods special.
Julia Meek: And sense of place, neighborhood pride, they're all trending. This is perfectly timed. How does this movement drive your push to preserve them and vice versa?
Karen Richards: I think what we're hoping to do is get some of those newcomers involved in not only the sense of place but preserving our sense of place.
Julia Meek: And these ARCH lectures are very well attended. And of course, that's the purpose of those and quite an effective way to do it. Who do you see there, and who might you like to attract as you begin this second 50 year run?
Karen Richards: You know, that's a great question, and I'm gonna digress just a bit. I mean, I am a history person. I started out loving history because I had a fabulous fourth grade teacher who taught history.
It is my personal opinion that we could do a better job teaching history to our children. I think we make it boring instead of making it fascinating.
And so, the whole purpose of our lectures are to brag about our sense of place and to try to get people involved and interested in all the fascinating aspects of the history of this city.
We try to highlight different architectural styles, different people, the diversity in our history. Normally, our demographics are people who are 40 and older. What we would really like to do is find a way to attract the 40 and younger audience, to get them excited about things.
One of the lectures we had this year was on Joel Ninde abd Grace Crosby, who were both very early female home builders. And these two women, their whole purpose was to make a home that was convenient for the homemaker.
That was a great lecture. This lecture, mine, is going to talk a little bit more about history and the community that it took to do these individual preservations.
But, yeah, we really would like to attract younger people. That's really important. They are the next generation that is going to protect what's about ready to become historically significant.
Julia Meek: And it's a generational affair.
Karen Richards: It absolutely is, and it should be.
Julia Meek: Indeed. Now this has been a difficult year for nonprofits of every sort, at every level. How are you upping your own game, it's a preservation game, and are you going to be able to carry it on and carry it out, do you think, as we continue on our way?
Karen Richards: You know, I absolutely think we are going to be able to carry it out. I think there are enough people in this community that care about historic preservation that I think we will continue to get support.
And I think one of the things that we stress, and we're about ready to stress to our members, is the importance of including your favorite not-for-profit in your estate planning.
I think that's really, really critical for people to remember that they can do us a favor by leaving us a gift in their will.
Julia Meek: Legacy in the making., a real legacy, yes, a wonderful suggestion.
Karen Richards: Some of the things other people do is they will include a historic covenant on their home so after they die, there are restrictions on what can happen to it and what people can do to it.
You know, the general rule of thumb is you should never do anything to a historical building that can't be undone. Paint is one thing.
You know, ripping out important features is entirely another. So, we try to get people to preserve what is there while still making an old house livable in today's age.
Julia Meek: And that's awareness as well as appreciation.
Karen Richards: Absolutely. And it's a little bit about telling people how you can do things, and what's available.
Julia Meek: Great points. And as we do enjoy a strong identity and a great cultural diversity here in northeast Indiana, what would you say is the best way to really amplify those strengths? It goes back to the villages and the neighborhoods and the spirit. What could we do?
Karen Richards: You know, I think part of it is education. And the other part, frankly, I think, is community involvement. You know, your community is what its citizens make it.
And if we don't have people who are willing to get in there, roll up their sleeves and do the hard work, it's not going to happen. And I think it is a challenge to get younger generations involved in community projects.
Somehow, we missed that part of their education, I think. (chuckles) I was always taught that was the responsibility of a citizen, you know, to pitch in.
And if you want this town to look like whatever your vision is, then it's up to you to get in there and make that happen. And I would like younger people to get in there and make this be a unique and livable and beautiful place that celebrates our history.
Julia Meek: That's a practical as well as most inspirational answer, Karen. Thank you for it. And my last question to you, then, at the end of the day, or the era or the half-century, why should preservation matter to our community--continue to matter, and why does that matter to you?
Karen Richards: I think it matters to me because I am a history person. Just like people who like to take things apart and put them together.
I am fascinated by what used to be. What did it used to look like? Who lived here? How did all of that work? What did we do in Fort Wayne that added to the world at large?
For instance, at one point this city, invented a new and improved washing machine. We invented all kinds of things here. So, it goes back to how unique we are and what we have that nobody else has.
People still, when they come to visit a city, they want to know what are some of the cool things that we can go see? And we want to have enough of those things so that people find us interesting, and we want to have that diversity for our own citizens.
And that's one of the reasons we do a home tour every summer. It's to show people how wonderful old homes can be, to show people how you can live in old homes, to celebrate the people that built them, that lived there, that care for them, and it does give people a sense of pride.
Julia Meek: Karen Richards is a local historian and guest lecturer, as well as Director of Development for ARCH, Inc. Thank you for your dedication to this worthy cause, Karen, and for sharing its story. Here's to another 50 years of preservation.
Karen Richards: Thank you so much.
