Waynedale

Waynedale is an old part of southwest Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was originally a small town a few miles outside Fort Wayne, but as the city grew the small town was eventually swallowed up. Although Waynedale has been part of Fort Wayne for more than 50 years, it still looks like a small town. Most of the businesses are locally owned; only a Walgreens drug store and a couple of restaurants are part of big chains.

I grew up near Waynedale, so this small town in the big city has been important to me. I moved back to the Waynedale area a couple years before I moved to Santa Fe, and I returned to Waynedale for a year after I moved back to Indiana in 2007. I wanted to photograph Waynedale before the small town feel is lost to the Wal-marting of America. I still live in Fort Wayne, and I still visit Waynedale often.

The two oldest buildings in Fort Wayne are in Waynedale. Both were built when the Waynedale area was a rural area several miles from Fort Wayne, which was a small town in the early 19th Century. I have an entire portfolio devoted to one of them, the little white church in the Prairie Grove Cemetery, which was built in 1851.

I also have a portfolio of photographs from the rest of the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana's second largest city.