Fort Wayne, IN: 1933 Southwest View from North Side High and NSHS and Zollner Pistons

(Satellite)

Great Memories and History of Fort Wayne, Indiana posted
1933. View from North Side H.S.

The City Utilities power plant a third from the right in the background is no surprise. And I can spot the Lincoln Tower that I wrote about just a few hours ago near the left in the background. But all of the streetcars parked on the other side of Spy Run Avenue is a complete surprise. I wonder what the long brick building on the other side of the parked cars was. I also wonder if any of those parked cars are interurban cars. The 1930s is when the interurban railroads died because of cars, good roads and the depression. But their interurban cars may not have been junked by 1933. The interurban railroads used streetcar tracks when they came to a town.

Update: I learned from a photo of the power plant that those interurban cars belonged to the Fort Wayne & Northern Indiana Traction Company.

Erik Michaels posted
Aerial view of North Side High School circa 1940 by Neuman Studio.
Charles S Quilhot I recall hearing about the collapse of a large portion of the high school as initial construction was nearing completion. A leading citizen, Byron Somers was asked to lead the investigation. He retained three national experts. Separately corrupt players were identified. Byron Somers called the culpable architect, contractors and school superintendent into his office where they were faced by Somers’ and his experts. Initially they denied responsibility and Somers picked up the phone letting them know he was calling the prosecutor and Mr. Foellinger at the News-Sentinel.

The culpable parties immediately begged Somers not to make the calls. Quietly they footed the entire cost of the rebuild.
Tim Sievers Snuck out on top of the dome many times in the mid 70’s!
Loyal Stiverson Wow! The football field is going the wrong way. Lol.
There is houses in the football field. Funny how things change.
Jack C. Shutt Loyal Stiverson It was rebuilt in the 50's.
Duane Kirchgassner i worked on the remodeling of the school in 2003 what a beautiful school worked on it for 2 1/2 years thank u weigand con.

Debra Switzer Bercot commented on Erik's post

Debra Switzer Bercot commented on Erik's post

Dennis DeBruler commented on Erik's post
Are the baseball diamonds that are past the tennis courts also used by the high school?

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
1967

Linda Bultemeier Krumwiede posted
Nice aerial view of the north side of Fort Wayne in 1926 or 1927. Full size image: https://drive.google.com/.../1UB_Y-JHoB_-8I9V.../view...

I knew that the Detroit Pistons started in Fort Wayne as the company team for Zollner Pistons. I did not know that they were listed in the NBA program as the Fort Wayne Pistons nor that they played in the gym of NSHS before the coliseum was built. The comments on Richard Kelley's post provide some history of the NBA as well as the Pistons.

Michael Bird commented on Richard Kelley's post

David Swingle

Fred Zollner was one of the founders of the NBA.

Rich Knipstein

I remember going to a game at NS with my dad. The Pistons were playing the Baltimore Bullets. The scoreboards back then usually only had 2 digits for each team. That night the Pistons scored over 100 points so the scoreboard went back to 00 and went up from there.

Dan Ensch

The early days of NBA, from 1946 to 1954, were infamous for the low scoring games. The lowest of them all was played on November 22, 1950, between the Fort Wayne Pistons and Minneapolis Lakers, when the Pistons defeated the Lakers by 19-18. It is a record that will never be broken!

Don Sherbondy

Dan Ensch

 , the Fort Wayne Pistons ( and the Syracuse Nationals) were the reason the NBA wanted a 24 second clock.

The game became boring with a high school type of stall.

Fans hated it ...Fort Wayne was too small of a city for the new NBA.

Fred Zollner was forced to move to Detroit.

Also the Syracuse Nationals had to go to a big city.

Indianapolis finally got an NBA team.

Fort Wayne crumbled with the rust belt.

But, at one time we were a progressive city with good energy.

North Side was a great high school.

Those were the days.

John Connell

One of the more remarkable trivia items from the Pistons' history happened in the NBA Finals of 1955. The Pistons played the Syracuse Nationals (Nationals won) in INDIANAPOLIS because the Coliseum was booked for the National Bowling Congress tournament and was unavailable for our Fort Wayne team.

Judith Foster Brown

i went to many games, both at NS and the coliseum. When we played the Nationals, for the championship, we got screwed. First we didn’t have any home games because of the ABC tournament and

Then by refs Lou Eisenstein and Mendu Rudolph.

John Glass

1944 NBL Champions !

Gordon Bainbridge

Pre-NBA.

David Sutton

They moved to Detroit in 1958. They were NBA NATIONAL CHAMPS in 1954. The tavern named Curlys on Bluffton Road is named after Curly Armstrong who was the most valuable player.

Danny Walchle

They added backboards when fans swatted away balls the other team shot. Agreement for the NBA was signed in Fort Wayne on Piston general manager Carl Bennett's table.

Cleat Griswold

I was there in 1949-1953 at North Side, and often got to watch the Pistons practice, as we worked out during Indoor Track Season, running around the hallways just outside the basketball court.

Some of the Zollner players then were: Curly Armstrong, Larry Foust, Jack Kerris, and Fred Schaus.