Filter by verdict. A file can carry more than one grade — a true death date above an unproven grave — and each part is graded separately, because that is how the evidence actually falls.
FILE 01 · PEOPLEProven
“Johnny Appleseed died in Fort Wayne and lies under the marker in Johnny Appleseed Park.”
ProvenThe death — Fort Wayne, 18 March 1845. The Fort Wayne Sentinel of 22 March 1845 (p.2) records John Chapman's death “on the same day” as Thomas McJanet's; the Times and Peoples Press of the same date fixes McJanet to the 18th, closing the ambiguity (Fortriede, ACPL, 1978). Estate papers — 42 probate documents — and the 1848–49 tax sales of his land corroborate a local 1845 death.
DocumentedBurial in David Archer's family burying ground by the feeder canal (Dawson, 1871; an 1858 interview; John H. Archer's 1900 letter).
UnprovenThe exact grave under today's marker. Archer's own 1900 letter: the headboards had rotted and “I do not think that any person could, with any degree of certainty, come within fifty feet of locating the grave.” The marker, and the 1934 Memorial Commission vote that kept its site, ratify a tradition — not a located grave. The rival Canterbury Green stone marks the cabin where he died, not a burial.
MisidentifiedThe rival dates: 11 March 1845 (Dawson's recollection, 1871), 1843 (Griswold, 1917), summer 1847 (Harper's, 1871). The tin-pot hat likewise appears in no contemporaneous source.
Primary: Fort Wayne Sentinel, 22 Mar 1845, p.2 — full transcription at ACGSI: acgsi.org (read in full for this record)
FILE 02 · NAMEDocumented
“Fort Wayne is the Summit City because the canal crested here.”
DocumentedThe explanation. ARCH: groundbreaking was at Fort Wayne “due to it being the highest point on the canal route and thus giving the town its nickname.” History Center historian Tom Castaldi: by 1843 the canal ran Lafayette–Toledo “with Fort Wayne resting on the highest elevation between the two. Eventually, it earned Fort Wayne the name of The Summit City.” The engineering underneath it — Fort Wayne sits on the canal's summit level, the Maumee–Wabash divide — fits the lock geography.
UnprovenThe coinage. No source found names a coiner, a date, or a single printed use from the 1840s. “The nickname dates from 1843” is asserted everywhere and documented nowhere — an open file (see Open Questions).
Sources: ARCH Heritage Trail — archfw.org; History Center Notes & Queries — historycenterfw.blogspot.com
FILE 03 · FLOOD 1913Documented
“The 1913 flood killed seven people in Fort Wayne.” — “No, six.”
DocumentedBoth, once the count is defined. Jarosh's News-Sentinel reconstruction — three 1913 dailies checked against birth, death, funeral-home, cemetery, census and directory records — names seven: Herbert Snow, drowned from a rescue boat at the Main Street bridge; four Allen County Orphan's Home girls (Ardah Woods, Alice Mannen, Esther Kramer, Kittie Wise), drowned when their evacuation boat capsized; William Singer, not quite four, in swollen Spy Run Creek on 29 March; and rescuer Peter G. Monnock, who collapsed — heart failure attributed to overexposure and overwork. That is six drownings + one flood-attributed collapse = seven flood deaths. Summaries saying “six” are counting drownings.
FabricatedAny larger toll applied to Fort Wayne itself. The ~700 deaths of 1913 belong to the multi-state flood, not this city.
Primary reconstruction: Jarosh, News-Sentinel — egen.fortwayne.com (read in full for this record)
FILE 04 · KEKIONGADocumented
“Kekionga was a great capital — and its name means ‘blackberry patch.’”
DocumentedThe scale, with a definition attached: a cluster of villages — Miami, plus refugee Delaware and Shawnee by the 1790s — not one town. The 1744 census (~1,000 Miamians) and period descriptions of cornfields “as far as the eye can see” support “the largest Miami settlement, and the largest village of its kind in present-day Indiana.” Precise one-date populations in the thousands need a named census.
UnprovenThe etymology. The state marker itself hedges — “Tradition holds that Kekionga means ‘the blackberry patch’” — following J. P. Dunn, who already doubted it. Linguist Michael McCafferty's exhaustive 2008 examination dismissed Dunn's explanation and several others. Print it as tradition, not translation.
Sources: Kekionga marker — hmdb.org; McCafferty, Native American Place Names of Indiana (2008), via the Kekionga summary
FILE 05 · NAMEUnproven
“Anthony Wayne got ‘Mad Anthony’ from a jailed spy — or from Stony Point.”
DocumentedThe nickname itself — universally attached to Wayne in his lifetime's aftermath; his earlier nickname was “Dandy.”
UnprovenEvery origin story. The Jemmy-the-Rover tale — Wayne's spy, jailed in 1781, refused release, threatened with 29 lashes, muttering “Anthony is mad” — reaches print through Glenn Tucker's 20th-century biography, with details admittedly varying between tellings. Washington Irving's rival crediting of Stony Point daring (1779) is likewise a later literary attribution. No contemporaneous document for either was found.
Sources: American Battlefield Trust — battlefields.org; PA Center for the Book — pabook.libraries.psu.edu
FILE 06 · PEOPLEDocumented
“Little Turtle's grave was found on Lawton Place in 1912 — Washington's sword proved it.”
DocumentedA strong circumstantial identification, reported at the time. On 4 July 1912 the Lochner brothers, digging a cellar at 634 Lawton Place, uncovered Miami burials in the known burial ground by William Wells's farm. J. M. Stouder's account (Journal-Gazette, 4 Aug 1912; reprinted in the Indiana Magazine of History) lists eight silver bracelets, three silver medals, 23 one-inch silver crosses, and “one sword, with silver hilt, wrapped with gold braid, which we are certain is that presented to the chief by General George Washington.” The skull went to the Smithsonian. The goods match documented gifts — but the identification is an inference over one of 25+ burials on the site, and the 1912 headline's “beyond all doubt” overstates it.
UnprovenHis birth year — c.1747 in some sources, c.1752 in others. His death date, 14 July 1812, is consistent everywhere.
Primary account: Indiana Magazine of History — scholarworks.iu.edu; memorial plot: acgsi.org
FILE 07 · GHOSTSFabricated
“The Woman in White haunted the Main Street bridge in 1883.”
ProvenThe sightings — as newspaper events. The Fort Wayne Gazette ran them on 27, 28 and 29 August 1883 (p.7), naming patrolmen Sheridan, Singleton, Lapp and Franke as witnesses, while disclaiming belief: “The GAZETTE is not a believer in the supernatural…”
FabricatedThe ghost — by the story's own later telling. Fort Wayne Magazine's history (Oct 2015) recounts a confession: two cousins projected the figure onto the bridge with a magic lantern from a West Central house and doused the lamp to make her vanish. FortWayne.com's Answers column records that readers debunked the Lady in White on that basis.
UnprovenThe lantern mechanics — the magazine itself asks whether a candle-era lantern could project that clearly at that distance. Hoax: settled. Apparatus: not quite.
Primary: Fort Wayne Gazette, 27–29 Aug 1883, transcripts at acgsi.org; debunk: fortwayne.com
FILE 08 · GHOSTSUnproven
“The Embassy Theatre's ghost is stage manager Bud Berger.”
DocumentedThe man. Berger was the Embassy's stage manager from 1936 until his death in 1965, and lived at the theatre (125 W. Jefferson, opened 1928), per the Embassy's executive director.
UnprovenThe ghost. Folding seats during organ practice, dream-warnings before burst pipes — all staff anecdotes retailed from the 1970s onward, no contemporaneous record, and the theatre “will neither confirm nor deny.” Watch the decay in retelling: one listicle moves his death to “the 1950s” and renames him “Bud Burger.”
Source: Visit Fort Wayne, with the Embassy's executive director — visitfortwayne.com
FILE 09 · WARFabricated
“Fort Wayne was seventh on Hitler's bombing list.”
FabricatedAs history. Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List is the title of Michael Martone's 1990 book — catalogued as fiction; Martone has said he set out to build a Midwestern mythology. A 2016 Michigan Quarterly Review investigation searched the History Center's Fort Wayne Civil Defense Council Records (1939–1947): curator Walter Font is “familiar with the legend, though he's never seen any written record,” and historian John Beatty: “It's become quite a myth… I've never seen any bombing list.”
DocumentedThe substrate that makes the myth plausible: wartime production at Harvester, GE, Magnavox, Tokheim and Rea, and the Camp Scott POW camp. Tell that story as itself — it needs no list.
Source: Michigan Quarterly Review investigation (2016) — sites.lsa.umich.edu
FILE 10 · INDUSTRYMisidentified
“Fort Wayne invented the refrigerator, in 1913.”
MisidentifiedWrong inventor, wrong year — right factory. The first GE home refrigerators (sold 1911, ~$1,000) were built in Fort Wayne from the patented design of French Cistercian physicist Abbé Marcel Audiffren (French patent 1894; U.S. patents 1895/1908). GE manufactured Audiffren machines here 1911–1928; the Monitor-Top of 1927 made the home refrigerator common. Fort Wayne's true claim is the first American manufacture of a practical domestic electric refrigerator — and the “1913” in city-summary lists looks like a rounding of the 1911–13 production start.
Sources: Assembly Magazine, GE appliance centenary — assemblymag.com; GE photo record, Google Arts & Culture
FILE 11 · INDUSTRYMisidentified
“Bowser invented the gasoline pump in 1885.”
MisidentifiedWrong fuel. The pump S. F. Bowser sold on 5 September 1885 dispensed kerosene; his patent is 1887; the self-measuring gasoline storage pump is 1905 — the era when a Bowser employee's coinage “filling station” attaches.
DocumentedThe corrected claim is stronger than the legend: Bowser, Wayne Pump and Tokheim made Fort Wayne the place that industrialised measured fuel dispensing.
Sources: Indiana Landmarks — indianalandmarks.org; ACGSI — acgsi.org
FILE 12 · INDUSTRYMisidentified
“The Magnavox Odyssey was invented in Fort Wayne.”
MisidentifiedWrong place of invention. Ralph Baer conceived the “Brown Box” at Sanders Associates in New Hampshire in 1966–67. Fort Wayne enters with Baer's demonstration to Magnavox management at its Fort Wayne headquarters, the March 1971 licensing agreement, and Fort Wayne engineers converting the Brown Box into the production Odyssey, released September 1972. A federal judge in 1977 called Baer's patent “the pioneering patent of the video-game art.”
DocumentedFort Wayne's real claim: the decision and the product engineering that made the first home console commercial. One flag before anyone prints a demo date: Indianapolis Monthly dates the Fort Wayne demonstration to 17 July 1969; Baer's own chronology as republished says 1970. Unresolved — see Open Questions.
Sources: Indianapolis Monthly — indianapolismonthly.com; Baer chronology — pong-story.com
FILE 13 · SPORTMisidentified
“Fort Wayne hosted the first night baseball game, in 1883.”
DocumentedThe game. On 2 June 1883 (Visit Fort Wayne's blog says 3 June — flagged), Jenney Electric lit League Park with 17 arc lamps of 4,000 candlepower for Quincy vs. Methodist College, Quincy winning 19–11 before ~2,000. The Gazette, the Fort Wayne News and Sporting Life all panned the light. The Fort Wayne night game scheduled first — vs. Indianapolis, 29–30 May — was rained out and never played as billed.
MisidentifiedThe superlative. An amateur night game had already been played at Hull, Massachusetts, in 1880. The defensible version — “first night game involving a professional team” — is still contested.
Sources: 19th Century Baseball — 19cbaseball.com; TinCaps/SABR summary — oursportscentral.com
FILE 14 · PEOPLEDocumented
“Richardville was the richest man in Indiana — worth $23 million today — born under a miraculous apple tree.”
DocumentedThe reputation. The History Center states the “richest man in Indiana” standing as fact, and the treaty record — 28,320 acres, $31,800 in cash, portage toll income — makes great wealth plausible. No probate valuation was found, so this record attaches no period dollar figure until his estate papers are read.
Unproven“$23 million in today's money” — travel blogs, no source, no conversion method. Also unproven as worded: “the only extant treaty house in the nation” (other accounts say one of a few, or one of three east of the Mississippi). And the apple tree: the History Center itself files the 12-foot-circumference tree under “local tradition”; George Winter's 1848 sketch caption says only the “reputed birth place of chief Richardville.”
Sources: History Center, Richardville House — fwhistorycenter.org; Notes & Queries, the apple tree — historycenterfw.blogspot.com
FILE 15 · FLOOD 1982Sources conflict
“In 1982 the river crested at 26.93 feet, 30,000 volunteers saved the city, and Reagan named it ‘The City That Saved Itself.’”
ProvenReagan's visit and sandbagging, 16 March 1982 — National Archives and DVIDS photographs; the History Center's artifact essay.
Sources conflictThe crest. The History Center's label for its “Dehydrated Flood Water” can (97.29.2) says the river “crested at 26.93 ft, just shy of the record 27.1 ft recorded in 1913.” The National Weather Service historical-crest series for the Maumee at Fort Wayne says 25.93 ft (17 Mar 1982) and 26.10 ft (26 Mar 1913). A full foot apart, gauge or datum unstated on the label. This record prints the NWS series and flags the label — never the reverse. Chart below.
Documented~30,000 volunteers — the figure on the commemorative can and in the University of Delaware's 1984 case study alike. (A South Side High School yearbook's “one-third of 173,000” is a higher, unsourced contemporary account; Mayor Win Moses's later “11,000 high school students… over 1 million sandbags” is participant memoir.)
Unproven“Reagan coined ‘The City That Saved Itself.’” Record-based accounts credit national newspapers or say the name was “reportedly” earned. No Reagan transcript with the phrase was found. Damage likewise splits by estimate: $56.1 million (News-Sentinel figure) against a $21.8 million early estimate in the 1983 yearbook — state which estimate, dated when.
Sources: History Center artifact 97.29.2 — fwhistorycenter.org (read in full); NWS series via aroundfortwayne.com
FILE 16 · PLACESMisidentified
“The Old Fort on Spy Run is Anthony Wayne's fort.”
MisidentifiedThe most common visitor error in the city. The Old Fort is a 1975–76 reconstruction of the third fort (1815–16, Maj. John Whistler's plans), built for the Bicentennial less than a quarter-mile from the original sites and opened June/July 1976. Nothing above ground survives of the 1794 fort; its downtown site is marked by the DAR boulder and plaque (1934/1944) at Clay & Berry. And the present Historic Fort Wayne, Inc. (founded 2004, all-volunteer) is not the original 1960s–80s organisation of the same name.
Sources: City of Fort Wayne facility record — cityoffortwayne.in.gov; ACGSI — acgsi.org
