October 8, 2024 // Diocese

Diocesan Museum Opens Central Catholic Exhibit

The story of Central Catholic High School, the first Catholic high school in Fort Wayne built to serve all of the area’s Catholic students, will live on in a new home at the Diocesan Museum in Fort Wayne. The museum, located at 1103 S. Calhoun St. on Cathedral Square, will celebrate its new Central Catholic exhibit space with an open house from 1-5 p.m. on Sunday, October 13.

Photos by Kevin Kilbane
Kathryn Imler, Director of the Diocesan Museum in Fort Wayne, hangs a uniform top in the museum’s new Central Catholic High School exhibit space. Central Catholic served students in the Fort Wayne area from 1939-72.

Nearly 10,000 students graduated from Central Catholic during its operation from 1939-72 at Lewis and Clinton streets in downtown Fort Wayne. Catholic families later began sending children to Fort Wayne’s current Catholic high schools, Bishop Luers High School, which was founded in 1958, and Bishop Dwenger High School, which was established in 1963. Demolition of the Central Catholic building began in 1984 and was completed in 1985.

Sports memorabilia in the Diocesan Museum’s new Central Catholic High School exhibit includes trophies, photos and a 1/4-scale model of the school’s gym floor made from a portion of the actual gym floor.

Memorabilia items donated by Central Catholic alumni have been stored and displayed for years at Bishop Dwenger High School. The collection has continued to grow, and the alumni association began looking for a new location to house and display it, said Kathy Imler, the Diocesan Museum director and a 1968 Central Catholic graduate.

Items displayed include memorabilia from the school’s music and twirling programs.

The move to the Diocesan Museum brings the collection back within a block of the school’s original location, Imler said. People may view the collection during the museum’s open hours, which are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and by appointment. Admission is free. Visitors with a physical disability can enter through a door on the south side of the building. However, much of the exhibit is down a stairway to the museum’s lower level.

For more information, go to diocesefwsb.org/museum or call 260-424-1485, Ext. 401.

Emily Doctor, left, an intern studying history and anthropology at Purdue University Fort Wayne, and docent Becky Morton assemble a display case for the new Central Catholic High School exhibit space at the Diocesan Museum in Fort Wayne. (Provided by the Diocesan Museum)

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