CITYSCAPES
The last downtown department store
By KEVIN LEININGER
from the archives of The News-Sentinel
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The G.C. Murphy Co. store at Calhoun and Wayne streets is one of the last of downtown Fort Wayne's department stores still doing business. The store has been at its present corner location since Oct. 25, 1950, but these pictures
give an interesting glimpse into the store's operation about two decades
earlier.
Before moving to Wayne at Calhoun, the store was located just east on Wayne
in the ``CalWayne Building.''
The interior photograph shows a department store of the late 1920s equipped
with wooden floors, ornate lights and ceiling fans. Soda fountain attendants
in Roaring Twenties outfits await customers behind their immaculate counter.
To make room for today's store, the old Order of Oddfellows building at
Wayne and Calhoun was razed. The building had also been the home of the Fort
Wayne Commercial Club, forerunner of today's Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce.
(Editor's note, 1997: The G.C. Murphy Co. closed its doors Jan. 31, 1992.
--June 26, 1982
