Fort Wayne

No hostile shots have ever been fired from this star-shaped fort built in the 1840s to guard against a British invasion from Canada which never came. This third bastion to protect the river approach to the city was named for General “Mad” Anthony Wayne who accepted the surrender of Detroit from the British in 1796. It was a mobilization center for Union troops during the Civil War. Regiments from Fort Wayne served in Indian conflicts, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, and World War I. An active post in the 1920s, it housed a Civilian Conservation Corps during the depression. Fort Wayne was a wartime supply depot in World War II and an induction center during the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts. Deactivated by the federal government in 1967, it now operates as a military museum under the auspices of the Detroit Historical Commission.