The Lincoln Museum in downtown Fort Wayne closed it's doors to visitors for the last time at 5 PM Sunday. The museum's collection has been in Fort Wayne for nearly 77 years. Lincoln Financial Group decided to close the museum in early March, citing that they wanted to make the collection "available to a greater number of people, using Lincoln' bicentennial as a cataylst."The collection has an estimated value of nearly $20 million. Recently, over 40 organizations and museums in Washington D.C. have joined together, forming a coallation to purchase the collection. However, many Indiana organizations have done the same, forming a coallation to purchase the items and keep them here in Indiana. The Indiana coallation is led by former Lincoln Financial Group CEO Ian Rolland. LFG has said they will decide on the final location of the items in January.
As for yesterday, the museum went out with quite a crowd. Visitors were lined up along Clinton all the way to Berry Street, at some points even crossing Berry. Even though a heavy 10-minute rain shower hit downtown around 3 PM, guests braved the weather, umbrella or none. The line was due to the fact that the museum has a specified carrying capacity that they cannot exceed, which happens to be 750 visitors at any given time. The museum operated at carrying capacity for much of the afternoon, and addmission was cut off at 4 PM. Many that were in line at the time were turned away.Inside the museum, it would be hard for the average person to be able to tell that it was the last day. Besides the museum store, everything was where it should be, every exhibit still working, and everything piece of the museum's astonishing collection was still exactly where it has been for the past several years.
Over the next several months, the collection will be packaged and ready to move to it's new location, wherever it may be. The Renaissance Building, which previously housed the temporary location for the ACPL, will then stand completely vacant, as the museum was the last operating tenant. The building was originally occupied by Lincoln Financial Group, in addition to their offices on Calhoun. The Elektron building, located on Berry directly across from the Renaissance Building, was home to the Lincoln National Corporation in it's early days, before moving to the offices on Calhoun. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation.
In the end, downtown has lost another great attraction, and a piece of Fort Wayne's history has officially been closed.
For more information on The Lincoln Museum, visit www.thelincolnmuseum.org.
