Fort Wayne, IN: PRR Baker Street Station

(Satellite is below)

Becky Osbun posted
December 10, 1970. Penn Central railroad station in Fort Wayne, vacant during nation-wide strike. - News-Sentinel

Larry Krayer posted
I'm glad it was restored
Craig Leonard The rendering of the Pennsy station is signed by Bert Griswold, the local historian who was also the cartoonist for the Sentinel. The building was designed by Will Price of Philadelphia and is notable as his largest surviving freestanding building(he also did the train shed addition to Union Station Indianapolis. His largest works were the Traymore, Blenheim, and Marlboro hotels in Atlantic City, NJ, which were demolished when casino gambling arrived there in the 1970's. He had so much Indiana work that he had a branch office in Indy, where he did the Allison Mansion, now on the Butler campus. See George Thomas, Arts and Crafts Into Modern, published by Princeton in 2000.
Bill Nimmo that photograph is looking towards the tracks.
[So when I went to Chicago, I would have walked through the doors at the far end into a tunnel that went under the tracks. There were a sequence of staircases going from that tunnel up to the track platforms. You had to pick the correct staircase to use, or the train would not stop at the platform you were standing on. I wonder if there were elevators for the disabled. Back then, suitcases did not have wheels, so you had to carry it across the waiting room and down the platform as well as up the stairs.]

Note the color differences between the above and the following. I didn't crop it because it would not have changed the resolution.

Tommy Lee Ftizwater posted

1915   Pennsylvania Depot

And yet another postcard production from the same photo. Or is it different scannings?

Becky Osbun posted
1917: Waiting room, Pennsylvania Depot, Fort Wayne, IN. - Harter Postcard Collection, ACPL

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted

April 19, 1913

Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel

Steam Engines, Tractors, Trains, & More posted
Pennsylvania Railroad October 5th 1956 The "Golden Arrow" 10 cars pulled by K-4 # 5356 4-6-2 at Fort Wayne Depot
Photo by D Allen Bauer

I shared it to the "Railroad Interlocking Coal Water Towers" group with the comment: "We see a lot of small depots with the spout on the side of the tank. Fort Wayne had multiple elevated platforms that you would access by a tunnel under the tracks. Note the towers are off to the right and standpipes are used between the tracks to service the locomotive while the train is parked at the station."

Satellite

As you would expect, the track area is now mostly an elevated weed field. But fortunately people discovered that the big waiting room in some of the old railroad depots make a great "event space," and this depot still exists.

Larrly Krayer commented on his posting

Randy Harter posted

Baker Street Station - Circa 1920

This article was written for and is courtesy of: Fort Wayne Reader newspaper

When the Pennsylvania Lines railroad tracks were elevated through downtown Fort Wayne during 1911-1913, the old Pennsy railroad station that sat about at the location of today’s Mikes Carwash on Calhoun was removed. A new station designed by the Philadelphia firm of Price and McLanahan was built two blocks west and finished in March of 1914. Constructed of semi-glazed buff brick, the beautiful two-story building featured terrazzo floors, marble borders, bronze light fixtures, and over the main concourse, stained-glass skylights. The final cost was $550,000, which adjusted for inflation would be about $13M in 2017 dollars.

Through the years, this station serviced passengers for the Pennsylvania RR, Penn Central RR, Conrail and finally, Amtrak’s Broadway Limited (Chicago to New York City), which made its last stop at the station on November 11, 1990 (now rerouted through Waterloo). The building, now known as the Baker Street Station, saw more than its share of luminaries and politicians, many of whom used it as a whistle stop opportunity to reach out to voters. Some of those that gave speeches on Baker Street included U.S. Presidents Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. Likely the station’s highest usage was during World War II, when an estimated 3,000 passengers passed through the station each day.

During the 1990’s the station nearly became a twisted pile of rubble as the city had issued permits to demolish the once beautiful structure, which by that time featured broken windows and had been stripped of anything salvageable. Fortunately, local architect Vic Martin came to the rescue, gaining ownership of the property in May of 1996. With the help of other passionate citizens and volunteers over the ensuing years, the property was returned to its former grandeur, as well as being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Now, in addition to being the home of Martin Riley Architects & Engineers, the wonderfully restored main concourse is rented for banquets, receptions and community events. (Image courtesy ACPL)

Randy Harter is a Fort Wayne historian, author, and tour guide for Fort Wayne Food Tours.

A colorized version of the above:

Photo from Kenneth Childers posting

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
1954
Craig Leonard This was the Pennsylvania depot, completed in March, 1914. Designed by Price & McClanahan of Philadelphia; it's their largest extant free standing building(they also did the 1916 expansion of Union Station Indianapolis. In 1988, I did my M. Arch thesis on an adaptive reuse of Baker Street Station.

Jan Ramsey commented on Tommy's post
Was the Wabash RR on the back side of the Baker St Station? When I was 10 we went there for a trip to Ca. And later a friend from Indiana Tech work there.
Dennis DeBruler Jan Ramsey If you went to the east side of the Baker Street platforms, you would probably see the Wabash station across the tracks because it was one block East. Note that Wabash had a roundhouse east of the GE buildings.
1956 Fort Wayne West Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Photo from Kenneth Childers
Pennsylvania Depot and Elevated Tracks, Fort Wayne, Ind. no date

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted a different colorization
1920

Donal Brockhaus posted
From 1914 to 1990, many fond hellos and sad good byes were expressed in this building.

Photo from Jim Warner's Old Photo of Fort Wayne album (source)

Environmental Protection Agency
AMTRAK'S BROADWAY LIMITED MAKES A STOP ENROUTE FROM CHICAGO TO POINTS EAST TO PICK UP AND DISCHARGE PASSENGERS.

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
The Fort Wayne Amtrak Station, 1974.

Allen County Community Album

RAILROAD DEPOTS EAST OF CALHOUN STREET, FORT WAYNE IN: ABANDONED IN 1914 WHEN NEW STATIONS WERE OCCUPIED, TAKEN FROM MIDST OF TRACKS WITH BUILDINGS ON BOTH SIDES VISIBLE, ELECTRIC POLES. 1889.

RAILROAD DEPOTS EAST OF CALHOUN STREET, FORT WAYNE IN: ABANDONED IN 1914 WHEN NEW STATIONS WERE OCCUPIED, TAKEN FROM MIDST OF TRACKS WITH BUILDINGS ON BOTH SIDES VISIBLE, ELECTRIC POLES. 1889.

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
Year?
Fort Wayne Indiana
Howard Pletcher Picture was mislabeled. This is the old Pennsylvania RR Depot on Baker St before the current one was built. The NYC used the Cass St. Depot. Picture is ca 1910 as the elevation is under way, but not completed yet.Howard Pletcher When the RR first came to town, it ran down Lafayette St. to as station at Lafayette & Columbia. I believe this station was built in 1860. It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't another one here before this one, but I don't know that.Dennis Boyd The PRR station previous to the one currently on Baker St. stood where Mike's Car Wash is now, interesting article:
http://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/.../fort-wayne-in...
[Dennis included the above pre-1914 photo and caption.]
Dennis Boyd Howard Pletcher I had a flash, wondering is the Post Office downtown was originally Pennsy property. From one of Phil's links:
https://www.acgsi.org/.../railroad-history-fort-wayne...
Dennis Boyd -"The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad became the Pennsylvania Railroad with a nearly 3 mile long block of Pennsy Shops where the downtown Post Office is located. The Bass Foundry was located across the street. "from the Civil War until just past 1900, Fort Wayne was one of the most important railroad centers in the nation." Read more in The Pennsy Shops by Tom Castaldi posted December 18, 2013 on the History Center Notes & Queries blog.
This information was copied from the Allen County INGenWeb Project at https://www.acgsi.org/.../railroad-history-fort-wayne... [Be sure to include your Access Date for proper citation purposes]"-

Marilyn Krupa-Burns posted
Old Penn Central RR Station, Fort Wayne, courtesy ACPL:

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted

Silva Lining Photography posted
Let's bring back the memories... (Zoom in and enjoy!)

Greta Tarr posted

Steve Tiny Michaels posted
Pennsylvania station, later Penn Central Station, later the Amtrak station, on Baker Street in darker days.
Tim Shanahan shared

 

Dennis DeBruler commented on Tim's share
Steve's photo makes one appreciate that the building was renovated. https://maps.app.goo.gl/njKSHoCqypRycJNX6

safe_image for Plans to restore Midwest, Fort Wayne passenger rail system chug along

(new window) David Cole shared this video with the comment: "The opening scene is Fort Wayne Ind... but there's no mistaking that the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha is under the train shed at Chicago Union Station!" I wondered how he could tell it was Fort Wayne's station until I saw the GE sign. 0:50 is when it switches to Chicago.



Jim Frazier Flickr:  interior
D A Baker Flickr:  exterior

Chris Gleason posted 16 photos including Harrison Street Viaduct
Chris Gleason posted 20 photos some more photos are in the comments