|
||
|
|
|
|
The Only Printed Map Locating Site of the First Professional Baseball Game
The Fort Wayne Guide Map of 1871, compiled and published by Harvey C. Lowrie, is a rare and significant artifact that serves as one of the only surviving visual records of the Kekionga Ball Grounds, the site of America's first professional baseball league game.
Printed by the Chicago Lithographing Co. and colored by wards, the map offers a comprehensive layout of Fort Wayne and surrounding areas, showcasing the city's infrastructure, including churches, school buildings, rivers, railroads, and proposed developments, laid out along the St. Mary's River, southwest of its confluence with the Mamee River. Several Railroads are shown, including the Grand Rapids & Indiana RR, the Ft. Wayne, Jackson & Saginaw RR, the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago & Grand Rapids Uniohn Track, the Ft. Wayne, Muncie & Cincinnati RR, the Toledo, Wabash & Western RR, the proposed line of the Ft. Wayne & Pacific RR, and an abandoned line of the Saginaw RR.
A number of early buildings are shown and named, including the site of the old fort house, Court House, Avenine House, High School, public schools. numerous Ward Polls, a number of early businesses and passenger depots, and the Old Skating Park. The Wabash & Erie Canal feeder is shown, along with a basin between the fifth and ninth wards. The verso is filled with advertising.
Kekionga Ball Grounds--The First Professional Baseball Game
Crucially, this map pinpoints the location of the Kekionga Ball Grounds, where on May 4, 1871, the first-ever National Association game was played—considered by many historians to be the inaugural Major League Baseball game. The Fort Wayne Kekiongas defeated the Cleveland Forest Citys 2-0, with Bobby Mathews pitching a shutout. The boundaries of the grounds, located on the west side of the map on the north side of the St. Mary's River, bounded by Mechanics Street, (today's Huron Street), west of the St. Marys River and north of the old fair grounds, are not well known, other than as shown on this map. The area may have included additional property leased by the team, though no surviving documentation clarifies whether specific lots were part of the legal description.
The Kekionga Ball Grounds was built in 1870 on the former site of Camp Allen, a Union Army base from the Civil War era. Its name was derived from Kekionga, the capital of the Miami tribe that once inhabited the region now known as Fort Wayne. Despite being the host for only eight other professional games, the site's role in baseball history is unparalleled. Unfortunately, no photographs, sketches, or other cartographic references exist of the ballpark, making this map a crucial historical document for any research into early baseball history.
At the time of the 1871 game, a covered grandstand known as the "Grand Dutchess" provided seating for spectators. Access to the Grand Dutchess was restricted to women and men who accompanied them. While some sources mistakenly refer to the entire ballpark as the "Grand Duchess," contemporary records confirm that this name was used only for the grandstand. Tragically, the Grand Dutchess was destroyed by fire on November 5, 1871.
The Ft. Wayne Kekiongas disbanded before completing the 1871 season, resulting in the Kekionga Ball Grounds hosting only eight additional major league games that year.
The 1871 Fort Wayne Guide Map thus remains invaluable, not only for its detailed illustration of the city's commercial and civic layout but also for its link to the early origins of organized sports in the United States.
Fort Wayne
The area at the confluence of the Maumee, St. Joseph, and St. Marys rivers has been inhabited by indigenous cultures for over 10,000 years, with the Miami tribe establishing their settlement of Kekionga in the 1690s. As the capital of the Miami nation and a key location during the Beaver Wars, the village was central to the cultural and political dynamics of the region. French influence began in the early 18th century, when Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, established Fort Miami at Kekionga in 1706. This outpost was part of a network of forts throughout New France and was a key trading post.
By the late 18th century, the region became contested between European powers and Native American tribes. After the French ceded the area to Britain in 1760, tensions grew, and Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763 led to the temporary loss of British control. With the American Revolution and the subsequent Treaty of Paris in 1783, the territory was formally ceded to the United States, but Native American resistance persisted. The Miami and their allies formed the Western Confederacy, headquartered at Kekionga, to resist American expansion, leading to the Northwest Indian War.
The decisive defeat of the confederacy by General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 marked the beginning of American control over the region. Wayne's construction of Fort Wayne on the ruins of Kekionga further solidified U.S. dominance. The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 led to significant Native American land cessions, including the area around Kekionga, paving the way for American settlement.
By the second half of the 19th century, Fort Wayne had transformed from a frontier outpost into a growing town. The Wabash and Erie Canal, completed in the 1830s, significantly boosted Fort Wayne's economy by connecting it to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The arrival of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway in 1854 further accelerated the city's development, marking the decline of the canal era and ushering in a new age of industrial growth in the region.
Rarity
The map is very rare.
No examples located in OCLC, but we do find reference to the map in an article written about the Kekionga Ball Grounds by Bill Griggs for the Society For American Baseball Research.
