Today’s Fort Wayne might not be the booming, energetic city Mac Parker remembers in the 1950s or 1960s.
But if there’s anything he’s learned about Fort Wayne’s economic history, it’s that even when a bust hits, the city won’t sputter for long.
“Our current situation is not unique,” he told an audience at the History Center on Sunday. “We’ve been through this before, and every time we turn things around in a bit.”
Parker, an attorney with Baker & Daniels, spoke about the economic history of Fort Wayne on Sunday. His lecture, which drew about 45 people, was the eighth of 10 free lectures at the History Center.
Parker, who often speaks about Fort Wayne’s economy, painted the city’s history as a series of booms and busts largely tied to transportation trends in the country.
He said Fort Wayne’s rivers were “key” to the city’s development, and spoke about how the construction of the Wabash-Erie Canal in 1832 transformed the city from a small village to a wild, frontier town full of Irish and German workers.
When the canals were replaced by the railroad, they almost bankrupted the state of Indiana, Parker said. But Fort Wayne was able to survive the economic downturn by becoming “a major manufacturing and repair center for the railroad.”
In 1919, Parker said, Fort Wayne beat out several larger cities in a competitive bid to have International Harvester move to the city. As part of the deal, he said, Fort Wayne had to build 1,000 homes for the company’s workers, provide 200 free acres for the company, and build roads and rail lines to the campus. At its peak in 1979, Parker said, International Harvester employed more than 10,000.
Parker recalls the 1950s and ’60s as times of great economic prosperity in the city. Unemployment was at 6 percent, and more than 30,000 moved to the area, he said.
“My friends couldn’t talk enough about how great Fort Wayne was,” said Parker, who had been in the military and had been stationed throughout the country. “They all walked with a bit of a swagger.”
The oil crisis in the early 1970s hit Fort Wayne hard, Parker said. And the city suffered again during the recession of the early 1980s. People fled the city in large numbers. International Harvester pulled out. Prominent national media like the New York Times wrote stories about Fort Wayne’s descent.
Then General Motors moved to town, and the city “got its confidence back,” Parker said. By 1999, Parker said, unemployment numbers were at a historic low.
Despite today’s bleak jobs outlook, Parker said Fort Wayne is well positioned to bounce back from the economic downturn.
He pointed to the city’s medical and defense industries, sports teams and downtown renovations as evidence that the city is constantly evolving and willing to switch economic gears.
“While we have some problems, we’re in much better shape than we were in the past,” he said. “People here are very resourceful, very innovative. I am confident we are well on our way to getting our swagger back.”
