A sign on Main Street points to Camp Allen Park where a monument was erected May 4, 2017 but not shown in the 2015 Street View photo from Google map. The monument was placed at the old Kekionga Ball Grounds, which is now Camp Allen Park along the St. Marys River on the northwest side of downtown Fort Wayne. It marks the location of the first professional baseball league game played between the Fort Wayne Kekiongas and the Cleveland Forest Citys on May 4, 1871. Fort Wayne defeated Cleveland 2-0 in the game. City Councilman Geoff Paddock, baseball historian Bill Griggs and the local Society of American Baseball Research worked with the Fort Wayne Parks Department to place the monument.
In late September I visited some sites related to my family history on the Civil War. Among them was the site of Camp...
In late September I visited some sites related to my family history on the Civil War. Among them was the site of Camp Allen in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was where disparate companies in Northeast Indiana came together and formed regiments – specifically, the 30th, 44th, 74th, 88th, and 100th Indiana plus the 11th Battery. Thousands of Hoosiers transformed into soldiers at Camp Allen, and left for war from this place.
Located along the St. Mary River about a mile from Fort Wayne’s historic downtown, this site today is a neighborhood and small city park known as Camp Allen Park.
While there, I took this picture of the historical marker. More information on the park can be found here. The contrasts of its original purpose, and what Camp Allen Park is now, are striking and worth contemplating.
750,000 Americans lost their lives in the Civil War. In Allen County alone, 4,000 citizens went to war, many of them receiving the bulk of their preparation and training on West Main Street’s Camp Allen, located just west of the Saint Marys River. Nearly 500 of those soldiers lost their lives during the war. Copied from the newspaper article Area's ties to Civil War still reverberate Timothy S. Goeglein published July 13, 2022
in The Journal Gazette newspaper.
