Driving down South Pontiac Street or Coliseum Boulevard South, it’s nearly impossible to miss the old International Harvester plant and tower. During the plant's 60 years of operation, the automotive factory employed tens of thousands of locals, produced over a million trucks and SUVs, and functioned as a pillar of Fort Wayne’s economy and community.
While the plant closed in 1983, the community and history of International Harvester are alive and well in Allen County. In July, plans were announced to build an International Harvester Museum as part of a larger development in New Haven.
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Courtesy City of New HavenA rendering of the future museum."The Harvester Homecoming Museum is expected to attract IH enthusiasts from around the world," Mayor Steve McMichael said
in a press release. "With support from the Redevelopment Commission of New Haven and a request to IEDC for additional funding, we are confident in the project’s success and its pivotal role in celebrating Hoosier manufacturing excellence."
Established in 1902 as an agricultural equipment company, International Harvester quickly expanded into truck and automotive sales. As the Illinois-based company grew, an additional plant proved necessary.
In the book, “History of Fort Wayne & Allen County, Indiana 1700-2005”, author John Beaty details the company’s road to picking Fort Wayne. The Summit City was one of 28 possible locations for the next Harvester plant.
From a business perspective, the city was a solid candidate. There were well-established magnet wire and electric industries in the area and, at the time, the county was the richest agricultural county in the state. However, according to a statement from Harold Mccormick, chairman of the board at the time, to the Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce, what really drew International Harvester to Fort Wayne was the city’s “community spirit, live chamber of commerce and high type of citizenship.”
The company approached the Chamber of Commerce in 1919 with a deal. International Harvester would build a five million dollar truck plant that would employ 4000-5000 and in exchange, Fort Wayne had to ensure there would be affordable housing nearby for the workers, infrastructure to bring public services to the plant, and beltline from the main railroad tracks– a nearly one million dollar investment on the city’s part, Beaty explains in his book.
According to Beaty, the city went on to purchase 286 lots surrounding the proposed location on South Pontiac, including the community known to this day as Harvester Park, in anticipation of the plant’s construction.
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Courtesy Harvester HomecomingHarvester Homecoming FestivalIn December of 1923, the Fort Wayne International Harvester plant opened its doors. In the following decades, the company became an integral part of the community.
In the 1960s, Beaty says the company hit its stride and built another plant on Meyer Road and expanded into a factory previously owned by International Telephone and Telegraph. By 1963, the plant produced its millionth car and by the end of the decade, International Harvester’s Fort Wayne branch employed nearly 9,000 employees and put $1.5 million annually into the economy through its payroll.
These accomplishments would earn Fort Wayne the title of “The Heavy-Duty Truck Capital of the World.” That success continued throughout most of the 1970s, with the company peaking at 10,600 Fort Wayne-based employees in 1979, Beaty says in his book.
This success, however, did not come without its complications. International Harvester department heads were in a hot debate with the United Automobile Workers Union (UAW) over labor contract disputes. The company was demanding concessions from the workers after boasting their highest profit quarter in years.
In response, on November 1, 1979, thousands of workers filed out of the Harvester plant at noon and picked up their picket signs. For the next 172 days, 8,000 of the 10,000 workers would remain on strike as negotiations continued, as reported by the
Fort Wayne Reader.
The nearly six-month strike proved to be devastating to Harvester’s profits, Beaty explains. The company reported a loss of $479 million in the first six months of 1980 and 1981 brought the worst national economic downturn since the Great Depression. By September, more than half the plant’s workforce would be unemployed.
By July 1982, International Harvester was forced to choose between closing in Fort Wayne or Springfield, Ohio to avoid bankruptcy. Allen County and Indiana scrambled to keep the plant in the city, putting together an offer of $31 million in tax breaks and concessions. To the east, Springfield put together a competing offer of $30 million, according to the
United Press International. The battle between the two cities would make national news, including the New York Times.
Despite Fort Wayne having a larger offer, it was decided that the newer plant, Springfield, would stay open, and Fort Wayne’s would close, according to the
News Sentinel. On July 15, 1983, the last truck rolled off the line and 2,200 employees were left without a job, according to
The New York Times.
According to the
News Sentinel, International Harvester was just one of several plants to leave Fort Wayne at the time. Unemployment in Fort Wayne peaked at 12.1 percent, with over 30,000 jobs lost across the city.
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Courtesy Harvester HomecomingHarvester Homecoming FestivalIn his book, Beaty says the city was left in a panic, but the $31 million raised in an attempt to keep the Fort Wayne International Harvester plant proved useful. The money was used to offer incentives and tax breaks to invite new companies into the area. Eventually, it caught the attention of General Motors in 1984. The GM plant brought in 3,000 jobs and relief to many workers left jobless after Harvester’s departure.
International Harvester survived the recession and reemerged under the name Navistar in 1986.
Despite the company’s departure, the spirit of Harvester stayed in Fort Wayne. In 2019 a nonprofit,
Harvester Homecoming, was founded by Ryan DuVall with the mission of keeping the history of International Harvester’s impact alive in the community.
“I thought it was a kind of a shame that nobody here was honoring the history of this company here because they did more than build Scouts,” says DuVall. “I mean, they changed the world.”
The Scout was the nation’s first sports utility vehicle and one of the Fort Wayne plant’s biggest products. DuVall first became familiar with Harvester through a 1974 Scout, which he had at 16. It wasn’t until months after moving to Fort Wayne in 1999 that DuVall found the Summit City’s connection to the vehicle.
In 2019 DuVall wrote
a story for the Journal Gazette on his “connection to the city through a truck” which also included interviews with past International Harvester employees.
“I got a call the next day from The History Center encouraging me to see if there was a way to raise some money to have an event,” DuVall says.
The event they came up with was the Harvester Homecoming Festival, a gathering of car enthusiasts and International Harvester vehicles of all types. For their first festival, DuVall says they were hoping to have around 200 vehicles and 2000 people. There ended up being 600 vehicles and 12,000 in attendance. This year they held their sixth annual Harvester Homecoming on the grounds of the International Harvester complex, honoring the company’s history and showcasing Harvester cars and trucks.
“There’s a lot of the retirees from Harvester there,” says Aaron Macklin, Homecoming Harvester volunteer. “You get to talk to them and hear stories of what went on in the factory and hear how they were built from the people who built them.”
Based on attendance numbers it's no surprise that the event attracts an audience across the country.
“This year there was an international shop from California that restores trucks,” says Macklin. “As far as regular people who show up, there’s always people who come from states away. Some even drive their old trucks.”
Among those attendees were Drew Thomas and his 1972 International Scout. He says, for many, their Harvester pride comes from nostalgia, but for him, it’s the love of the car itself.
“Most people like Scouts because they grew up with someone in their family working at Harvester so they grew up in and around Scouts,” Thomas says. “For me, I love the Scouts because they’re so robust and thick and built to last… I don’t think they’re charming cars but I think people understand and respect the engineering and quality and the nostalgia factor.”
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Courtesy Drew ThomasDrew Thomas' 1972 International Scout.Nostalgia led Thomas to his Scout, which was originally owned by his great-grandfather who bought it new off the lot in Texas. His father brought it up to Fort Wayne when Thomas was in his teens and they restored it together.
“It’s a sentimental vehicle for me,” he says. “It was my first car, that’s what got me into cars.”
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Drew Thomas' great-grandfather with the Scout.His father sold it on eBay when he was 16 and he didn’t see it again until he sought to buy it back in 2021. He says, thanks to the power of the internet he was able to locate it within 48 hours. Thomas drove it up from Oklahoma City and spent the next two years restoring it. He was able to bring it to the 2023 Harvester Homecoming Festival completely restored.
The festival isn’t the only way the nonprofit has kept the International Harvester memory alive. For years they’ve been working to establish a museum to honor what the company brought to Fort Wayne. The original plan was to repurpose the International Harvester building, which was left relatively untouched after the plant closed.
“It looks like one day everyone just got up and left,” Macklin says. “All of their work and everything is sitting there. There are just the little knick-knacks, like playing cards and coasters with the IH emblems on them and old organizational charts– anything that was just sitting in someone’s office.”
But Harvester Homecoming had to change plans in 2022 when
Allen County purchased the Harvester building as part of a lot with plans for the new jail.
“When it was first announced, [the county] didn’t have any intentions of using any of the buildings we were using, they just wanted the land for the jail,” says DuVall.
As plans moved forward, Harvester Homecoming was told to vacate so it could be repurposed to house county offices. The nonprofit was forced to navigate relocating.
In July, the City of New Haven announced the museum would find a permanent home in the upcoming Fields of Grace Complex.
While the relocation was unanticipated, DuVall says “This new plan, is in a lot of ways, better than even trying to do a museum in the old building,” especially when it comes to the limitations of the old space and lower costs associated with a new space.
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Courtesy Harvester HomecomingThe Harvester Homecoming FestivalThe museum will make up 30,000 square feet of the 200-acre development which will house a youth sports center, restaurants, hotels, stores and more. The museum itself will display Harvester motors, blueprints, and original vehicle drawings, among other Harvester memorabilia.
“We’ve found all kinds of things in the old building like truck manuals and parts– anything you can think of,” says Macklin.
The museum will also feature a gift shop for those wanting to show Harvester pride and The Proving Grounds Cafe, which is named after the location where the vehicles were tested on the plant’s campus. There are hopes for the museum to possibly hold vocational training facilities and maker space in the future, continuing the industrial tradition of the company.
The complex isn’t expected to open until 2026 and will be located along Minnich Road, along Interstate 469 Exit 17.
DuVall says Harvester Homecoming is still open to returning to the original building in the future.
“We’re really excited and looking forward to the future but I never turned my back on the old facilities. If there was ever a chance to do something in that old building again, we’d definitely still like to do that while we’re doing our museum” says DuVall.
To learn more about Harvester Homecoming or the history of International Harvester in Fort Wayne,
click here.