White's Mansion? (Fort Wayne, Indian Village: rent, houses, construction)

[Always Needmore]

Anybody here used to frequent White's Mansion back in the days before they tore it down? Built by the Swan family, entirely of poured cement mixed with water from the creek that passes through. Included rampways instead of stairs, a never finished elevator.....and sturdy as a bomb shelter, it had been abandoned for years before I first saw it.

Great place to skip school, and go misbehave at ....

I was saddened to see it had been torn down. I guess it was considered a common nuisance. God knows I always did my best to make it so.

[BabyBear1234]

Where was this located? I love seeing old and interesting architecture! Are there any pics of the inside?

[Always Needmore]

It was just to the East side of Hanna, where it intersects with US 27. Used to be a "Mr Wiggs" discount store there. This house was kinda back in the woods beside Mr Wiggs.

If you search real hard you can find a pile of cement debris back in the woods, that might or might not be parts of the old house. The pile is not big enough to be the entire house, but at the same time it's had to imagine someone going to the trouble to cart in the debris......so my guess is that who ever did the demo must have filled up their truck and said "I'm not coming back for a few pieces" and just left it?

Now days that low rent housing project is right near by, so I'd guess they got built about the time the house disappeared. When I got back to town in 2003 I was sorry to see it gone.

Pictures inside? No, sorry But as I said the entire building was poured cement, and the most noteworthy features were the never completed elevator shaft (a falling hazard), concrete ramps instead of stairs (similar to the memorial coliseum in that respect) and the 16" diameter solid cement columns that ran from the foundation to the roof in some areas (2 story). one of those columns had busted loose from the decaying roof, and you could rock it back and forth like an inverted pendulum

Here's the only other picture that I have, hopefully someone else will have more?



Correction, earlier I called the family that built it the "Swan" family....that was incorrect. It was the knee family.


Lots of interesting lore about this place back in the day, including stories of resident vagrants who supposedly made little kids regret going there, all the usual horror stories, etc

[BabyBear1234]

That sounds interesting for sure...there were some other "odd" houses built around here that have been demolished over the years...I know one was out in the Aboite area.

[Always Needmore]

Yeah, I suppose it could have all started for me back with this one building, but now it seems like I've always had a passion for vacant buildings. I try to call myself a "Rustbelt Archaeologist" .....but I guess it's mostly voyeurism... sometimes a fascination with what I perceive as someone's "broken dreams" stuff like that.

Few years ago when GE fully shut down the Broadway plant...they had an auction to sell off surplus and scrap items., I went to the auction mostly as a way to tour the buildings....and mentioned to the auctioneer that I had a sort of "Freddy Kreuger" type curiosity thing going with the buildings.

So, he gave me a brief tour of some of the more obscure locations in some of the buildings....loved it.

There was this one passage in the basement of the multi-story building on College street, that he claimed was a portal to a tunnel that extended all the way to the Taylor street plant.

Man, I really wanted to explore that, but he wouldn't let me. And it would have been "flashlights and hip waders" to get in there, so I missed out.

[Always Needmore]

OMG!! Ever have indepth curiosity about something you had only faint information on.....for years...and then suddenly just stumble into a treasure trove?

https://www.genealogycenter.info/sea...eresidence.php

Floor plans, in-progress construction photos, family back story (the real story, not the myths and legend), and a chronology of the property's demise.

I had always believed the family behind this legend were just a bunch of bohemian homesteaders with concrete skills. Never realized that the patriarch was an accomplished superintendent for a construction general contractor (the one who developed the Indian Village subdivision, among others)

As Fort Wayne's street grid eventually grew to include this tract, it's official street address would become 6621 John Street. But at the time construction was started in 1938, it was roughly a mile south of the city limits.