Fort Wayne is a city in northeastern Indiana, United States and the county seat of Allen County. As of 2008, the city had an estimated population of 251,247, ranking it the 72^nd largest city in the United States, as well as Indiana's second largest city after Indianapolis. In 2006, the combined population of the Fort Wayne Metropolitan Statistical Area was 570,779, ranking it the third largest metropolitan area in the state.

United States Army general and American Revolutionary War statesman General "Mad" Anthony Wayne is the namesake of Fort Wayne. The United States Army built Fort Wayne last in a series of forts near the Miami Indian village of Kekionga, which was located where the St. Joseph River and St. Marys River converge to form the Maumee River.

Fort Wayne sits within a radius of 17 percent of the total United States population and also within a day's drive of half of the nation's population. The city's economy is based on manufacturing, education, health care, and defense and security, with agriculture being the primary economic activity in the metro area.Fort Wayne: Economy - City-Data. Retrieved on 2008-04-29. The city has been presented with the All-America City Award in 1982-1983 and 1998.

History

The Miami nation first established a settlement at the Maumee, St. Joseph, and St. Marys Rivers in the mid-17^th century called Kekionga. The village was the traditional capital of the Miami nation and related Algonquian tribes. Historians believe that around 1676, French priests and missionaries visited the Miami on their way back from a mission at Lake Michigan. In 1680, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sent a letter to the Governor-General of Canada stating he had also stopped there. In the 1680s, French traders established a post at the location because it was the crucial portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The Maumee River is approximately ten miles (16 kilometers) away from the Little River branch of the Wabash River, which flows, in turn, into the Ohio River.Goodrich, De Witt C. and Charles Richard Tuttle (1875) An Illustrated History of the State of Indiana. (NP:R. S. Peale & Co., ND).

In 1696, Comte de Frontenac appointed Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes as commander of the French outpost in Miami country."Vincennes, Sieur de (Jean Baptiste Bissot)," The Encyclopedia Americana (Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1990), 28:130. The French built the first fort on the site, Fort Miamis, in 1697 as part of a group of forts built between Quebec, Canada, and St. Louis. In 1721, a few years after Bissot's death, Fort Miamis was replaced by Fort St. Philippe des Miamis.Peckham, Howard Henry (2003) "Indiana: A History". W.W. Norton ISBN 0-252-07146-8. The first census, performed in 1744 on the order by the governor of Louisiana, revealed a population of approximately forty Frenchmen and one thousand Miami. Map of Fort Wayne, circa 1795. Increasing tension between France and the United Kingdom developed over the territory. In 1760, after defeat by British forces in the French and Indian War, the area was ceded to the British Empire. The fort was again renamed, this time to Fort Miami. In 1763, various Native American nations rebelled against British rule and retook the fort as part of Pontiac's Rebellion. The Miami regained control of Kekionga, a rule that lasted for more than thirty years.