It used to be that if you needed help – with your rent, your gas bill, your grocery bill, or your abusive spouse – figuring out whom to call for that help was nearly as complicated as the problem itself.FORT WAYNE – A south-side neighborhood has been named to the National Register of Historic Places.
Lafayette Place Historic District, roughly bounded by Lafayette and Calhoun streets and Pettit and McKinnie avenues, was deemed significant in architecture, landscape architecture and community planning, according to Michael Galbraith, executive director of ARCH, a local non-profit historical architecture preservation group.
Lafayette Place Historic District will be featured in ARCH’s annual Historic Home and Garden Tour on June 14 and 15.
Listing in the National Register provides recognition, assists in preserving neighborhoods and is the first step toward becoming eligible for federal preservation tax credits from the National Park Service.
The credits have been used to leverage more than $45 billion in private investment and National Park Service grant programs such as Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America.
Lafayette Place was one of three nominations by ARCH to be named to the national register.
The others are:
•The Peru High School Historic District in Peru. It was found to be significant in the areas of architecture, education and entertainment and recreation. Tig-Arena, the basketball gymnasium built in 1940, is part of the district.
•The Meshingomesia Cemetery and Indian School, near Marion. It scored high in education and ethnic Native American heritage. The area was the site of the last division of Miami tribal land in Indiana and is the best remaining property with association to Chief Meshingomesia. It is now a center for education and revitalization of the Myaamia language.
All three projects were financed in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund, administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology.
