Fort Wayne, Indiana, shaped by architect John F. Wing

By Terry Davis

Some people leave a lasting legacy in their words. Others through their deeds.

John Frank Wing, a fifth great-grandson of the Rev. John and Deborah Wing, built his legacy on a solid foundation of stone, brick and mortar. Much of his legacy of architectural vision endures today, more than a century later, throughout modern-day Fort Wayne and other cities in Indiana.

Indiana was shaped more than a century ago by the architectural vision of a member of our Wing family who was born and raised in Michigan – John Frank Wing.

Wing crafted his reputation with striking buildings while working as a partner in the Fort Wayne firm of Wing and Mahurin. He was active in the architectural field over the span of the 1870s to 1920s.

Buildings he designed range from city halls, county courthouses and libraries, to private residences. Many of his creations stand prominently today in Fort Wayne and in many other Indiana cities, especially county seats.

John Frank Wing was born 1 June, 1852, in Dexter, Washtenaw County, Michigan, to John Lee Wing (1822-1871) and Harriet Sophia Bashford Wing (1822-1904). John Lee Wing was a native of Sullivan, Madison County, New York. He and Sophia married on 31 December, 1846.

By the time John F. Wing married Ellen Augusta Markham (1850-1933) on 21 August, 1878, in Jackson, Jackson County, Michigan, he was listed as an architect on the county marriage register. 

The family of John and Ellen Wing moved from Michigan to Fort Wayne in northeast Indiana in the late 1880s, where John Wing partnered with Marshall Mahurin in the firm Wing & Mahurin until 1907.  It was one of Fort Wayne’s oldest architectural firms with offices located in the Pixlev and Long Block (at right). The Wing & Mahurin partnership ended in 1907, when Marshall Mahurin left and started a new firm with his nephew Guy M. Mahurin.

His legacy

Many of Wing’s buildings exhibited the Richardsonian Style. In 1887, Wing helped design the Indiana State School for Feeble-Minded (developmentally disabled) Children. 

In 1889, came the St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. 

Two other Richardsonian Romanesque-style buildings Wing designed were the Fort Wayne City Hall in 1893: 

and the John H. Bass mansion in 1902. The Bass home is today on the University of St. Francis campus.

In the area west of downtown Fort Wayne known as the West Central Neighborhood stand many examples of early Greek Revival-style homes and Gothic Revival residences designed by Wing and Mahurin, including the Oliver S. Hanna House in the style of Queen Anne.

Not all of Wing’s work was in Fort Wayne. In 1897, he designed the Starke County Courthouse in Knox, Indiana. 

In 1907-08, his design from the Monroe County Courthouse was executed in Bloomington, Indiana. 

He also designed the Carnegie library in Muncie, Indiana.

 (See more buildings designed by Wing and/or Wing and Mahurin at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_%26_Mahurin

Ellen Wing died in1933.  John died 28 June, 1947, at age 95 and was buried next to Ellen in Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne, where a Romanesque Revival style limestone chapel with bell tower designed by Wing and Mahurin in 1895 still stands. 

John Frank Wing’s lineage: Rev. John, John, Ananias, Lt. John, James, Benjamin and John Lee Wing.

John Frank Wing is this writer’s sixth cousin twice removed, but also his fifth cousin three times removed through this writer’s maternal Gifford, Perry (both from Sandwich, Cape Cod in the 1600s), Benedict and Chadderdon lines.