Fort Wayne Victorians' Most Popular Summer Spots

 Note: This is a companion piece to “The Excursion Train,” posted in June 2024.

By the time the Fort Wayne Daily News ran this illustration in 1908, nearby lake resorts were in their last years of prominence. Once, thousands flocked to resorts less than 40 miles out of town. 

    In the 1800s, as the train opened possibilities to individuals and families, it opened possibilities to new communities too. If you could get people lakeside, you could build a resort. This happened in two lakeside places near Fort Wayne, Pleasant Lake and Rome City, Indiana in the 1870s. 

Lakeside Resorts

     Rome City was a tiny hamlet on Sylvan Lake in Noble County, a mere 36 miles from Fort Wayne but an insurmountable distance for a day trip prior to rail. It became wildly popular with Fort Wayne folks once the railroad arrived and was an hour and a half trip by rail. Surveys for the line were made in 1866. In 1875 a new, attractive depot was built. 

     The lake that attracted weekend visitors is 600 acres with islands. There was a small steamboat that took people around the lake, stopping on islands. There were rowboats and sailboats and the fishing was said to be fantastic. Bass, pickerel and lake shad were abundant. Bands and orchestras came out and dances were held. There were two croquet courts and a dining hall where a meal could be had for 25 cents. There was a dance hall, fountains, and two wells with cool water and a pleasant grove for picnicking.

     In 1876 the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad announced that beginning July 2, it would run an excursion train to Rome City every Sunday for the rest of the summer. The train left at 8:00 a.m. and returned at 6:00 p.m. Note that for the vast majority of people, Sunday was their only day off. 

     Pleasant Lake in Steuben County similarly developed into a resort. It was 39 miles away and starting in 1870, accessed over the Fort Wayne, Jackson & Saginaw Railroad. It offered the same amenities as Rome City. In 1875 a businessman showed the Steuben Republican editor plans to develop a resort. It had “bath parlors” where people could take a dip in the water without being seen by all. The lake already had small resorts in progress and picnic facilities. According to the newspaper, it averaged two to three picnic excursions per week.

     By 1877 Mr. V.E.Simmons owned an eight-acre shady picnic grove with the underbrush cleared, hammocks and picnic tables, swings and a dance pavilion. He had boats to rent – two sailboats and 15 rowboats, and a steamboat, the “S.K. Hooper” capable of carrying 60 to 75 passengers. Refreshments were available on the grounds for those who didn’t feel like hauling a picnic basket from home. For excursionists the 15 cent admission was waived. Both Pleasant Lake and Rome City also had hotels with restaurants, for those who could afford them. 

     An article in the June 1879 Fort Wayne Daily Gazette extolled the virtues of a temperance day excursion at Pleasant Lake sponsored by the Reformed Mens Club. Three carloads of people were met at the depot and escorted to the grove by the Pleasant Lake Brass Band, which performed numbers throughout the day. The proprietors did not permit “rowdyism” or anyone under  the influence to enter, ensuring that “ladies and children are always safe under their protection.” With a little more cooperation with the railroad, the writer said, Pleasure Lake would be a worthy rival of Rome City.

     That cooperation evidently happened. By 1882 the newspaper reported a crowd estimated at 7,000 on the Fourth of July. Crowd estimates are notoriously difficult, but clearly, a lot of people were there. In 1884 on the opening day of the season attendees were treated to a “sub-marine demonstration” by John Quinn who made several descents to the bottom of the lake and stayed under for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. A rowing club raced, but the biggest attraction was a baseball game between a Jonesville, Michigan team and a Pleasant Lake team.

Rome City Doings

      Rome City excursions were frequent, and private trips by wealthier folk were constantly mentioned by the 1880s. Eliza Hanna Hayden, heir of one of the wealthiest families in town, did not have to wait for a chartered excursion train with a half-priced ticket, for example. Rome City had private cabins on the lake and the Spring Beach Hotel. A few items in the paper noted that servants were accompanying the family for a weeklong stay.

      In June 1877 both the Second Presbyterian church - my third great-grandparents' church - and the Congregational Church had a picnic planned with a $1 roundtrip excursion train. Most likely, as the former president of the church board, my ancestors Myron and Jane Barbour attended.

     People came to Rome City from other parts of Indiana and from Ohio and Michigan, too. June 1878 was an especially busy month. On the 13th the Northern Indiana Editorial Association was spending the day in Rome City. The 15th, a Saturday, an excursion train was leaving Fort Wayne at 8:30 a.m. with a $1 round-trip ticket. The Universalists of Northern Indiana were holding a basket meeting on the 16th. People were urged to come out to Rome City on the 18th for a “basket meeting,” with the “leading Murphy orators” in the country. Francis Murphy was a temperance leader from Pittsburgh with immense national appeal. All Murphy Clubs from Indiana and Michigan were expected and a local organizer predicted crowds of 10,000. On the 19th a private party of “society people” would picnic at Rome City. 

     In August the YMCA filled five coaches with picnickers and the Fort Wayne City Band accompanied them. The Universalists were back at the resort with trains coming from Kalamazoo and Logansport and a gathering sure to be the biggest ever. 

     In 1884 eleven coaches were filled with a thousand Fort Wayne residents and members of the city police force. A reporter went along, dressed in the “dizziest attire,” marine-blue pants and a fifty-cent duster and cane. “On board everybody was jolly and the coppers chucked the “chippies” under the chin with the freedom of a boy let loose from school,” he reported. The respectable ladies on board were well-cared for.  

Other Nearby Hoosier Resorts

     Horizons expanded more by going farther afield in the 1880s to places like Lake Maxinkuckee, Indiana’s second-largest natural lake in Marshall County. In 1882 and in 1885 the Fort Wayne newspapers predicted it would become “one of our most popular watering places in a few years.” On the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, it attracted a lot of conventions attended by Fort Wayne folks in the 1880s, such as the State Democratic Editorial Convention, various G.A.R. posts (Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans’ group), and the Indiana Pharmaceutical Association. 

     Warsaw in Kosciusko County, nicknamed “The City of the Lakes,”  was described in an 1886  Fort Wayne Sentinel article as “a nice little city and the resort, lying north and in between two beautiful lakes, connected by a canal.” With the expenditure of several thousand dollars, the reporter said, it could become a great resort. At present, excursions ran there a bit prematurely, locals agreed. The reporter accompanied the Butchers’ Union excursion which began with the Princess Band marching down Calhoun Street in Fort Wayne to the south depot. Seven coaches were filled with butchers and their families, 600 people in all. It was noted that Warsaw was a temperance city and it was hard to buy a beer there, which was a problem for Fort Wayne’s many German immigrants.

     Maybe the Beyer brothers remedied that when they opened Spring Fountain Resort in 1887 in Warsaw along what is now known as Winona Lake. It had a hotel, auditorium, racetrack, roller coaster and cyclorama. The three Beyer brothers immigrated from Prussia in their youth and made a fortune in the wholesale dairy and produce business. 

     By June 22, 1895 the Fort Wayne News said most of Fort Wayne’s finest citizens had a packing-up week and a general exodus to their cottages on the lakes – Petoskey, Mackinac, Rome City, Eagle Lake (now Winona), Maxinkuckee, Clear Lake and other resorts. 

Decline

     By 1913, the steam trains no longer ran excursions, or even any train service, to Rome City. Desperate residents of the town petitioned the Fort Wayne & Northwestern Interurban Company to run an eight-mile line from Kendallville to the town. “It is a hard matter to get to and from Rome City,” the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette noted. The cost for the line was estimated at $100,000. 

     By the time Millard Owen retired in 1921 after forty-five years as station agent at Rome City, the resort no longer existed. Rome City was still a vacation spot, but for those who owned or rented cottages there. Cars, of course, made it easy to arrive – and to go farther afield than 36 miles. Lakes less than 40 miles out of town lost the cache they once had for the wealthy, and even the “average Joe.”

Note: Sylvan Lake today is the home of the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site. Porter was the best-seller author of books like Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles and columns in national magazines like Good Housekeeping and McCall’s.

    

Copyright by Andrea Auclair  © 2024