The Allen County War Memorial Coliseum

An address delivered before the Quest Club by Otto H. Adams, November 6, 1953, at the Chamber of Commerce, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Prepared by the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County 1954
One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL CITY OF FORT WAYNE
Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs B.F. Geyer, President Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary W. Page Yarnelle, Treasurer Willard Shambaugh
PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY
The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers) together with the following citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate City of Fort Wayne:
James E. Graham Arthur Niemeier Mrs. Glenn Henderson Mrs. Charles Reynolds
The story of the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum began ten years ago. The progression of events between the first consideration of the memorial in 1944 and its completion in 1952 was by no means smooth and uninterrupted. The account of the solution of the problems involved in planning, financing, and constructing the memorial constitutes a community accomplishment.
The source material for this publication originated in a speech delivered by Otto H. Adams at a meeting of the Quest Club, November 6, 1953. Mr. Adams, recently elected president of the Coliseum Board of Trustees, reviewed the history of the Coliseum and discussed its value to city and county in his paper entitled “Coliseum—Asset or Liability?” James R. Fleming, the past president of the Board of Trustees, A. M. Strauss, the architect, and Don L. Myers, the coliseum manager, have supplied supplementary information.
The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County present this pamphlet in the hope that it will interest and inform the citizens of Allen County.
In 1944 the Fort Wayne Junior Chamber of Commerce first proposed the construction of a coliseum as a memorial to the men and women of Allen County who had lost their lives in both World Wars. Such a structure was envisioned as serving a twofold purpose; it would honor our heroic dead and would greatly increase recreational facilities. A Russell Sage Foundation study was made after World War II; the report indicates a definite trend among memorial planners to erect “living memorials,” which serve the people while honoring their heroes, rather than ornamental arches, statues, and monuments. The Foundation believes that this trend is commendable and hails it as a “triumph of common sense over sentimentalism.” Contemporary opinion seems to be that construction of a useful memorial in no way detracts from the honor paid to the dead. On the contrary, it is felt that the utility of the monument demonstrates our regard for them more forcibly by benefiting that society for which they died.