CITYSCAPES

Banker & reformed gambler built Pixley-Long

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By KEVIN LEININGER
from the archives of The News-Sentinel

Today, the Lincoln National Bank tower is rightly regarded as perhaps the most beautiful building in Fort Wayne. But before the 22-story tower went up in 1929, the five-story Pixley-Long Building occupied the lot at East Berry and Court streets.

The Pixley-Long Building was a new, imposing office and commercial building in 1889. The ``Pixley'' in its name was George Pixley, a clothier and banker who came to Fort Wayne from Utica, N.Y., in 1876.

The "Long'' belonged to Mason Long, who was surely one of the most colorful characters in the history of Fort Wayne.

Long came to Fort Wayne in 1865, but his pre-Summit City life is worth mentioning. Born in 1842, both his parents died by the time he turned 10. He was bound out to a wealthy German farmer as a ``white slave'' but in 1862 joined the Union Army to fight in the Civil War. During his Army stint, another soldier taught him a $25 card trick which earned him $400 after the next payday. By then, gambling was in his blood.

After coming to Fort Wayne, Long opened a restaurant and gambling house. Gambling was for a time profitable, but it left him penniless by 1877. Destitution turned Long off of alcohol and on to Christianity. He wrote a book called ``Mason Long, the Converted Gambler.'' He also made several evangelistic tours to promote his new-found faith.

In later years he became a stock broker and built a handsome house at 922 Columbia Ave.

As for his partner Pixley, the storefront of his clothing business, Pixley & Co., was on the first floor. Also occupying the first floor of the Pixley-Long Building was the Peoples Store, an early Fort Wayne dry goods outlet.

Shortly after the building was finished, Pixley relinquished management of the clothing store and formed the Tri-State Loan and Trust Co., to help ``gratify the wishes of men who desired to become property owners ... but whose salaries preclude the possibility of their paying cash for a home.''

Just 40 years after its construction, the Pixley-Long Building gave way to progress. Ground was broken for the Lincoln Tower just 30 days before the stock market crashed in 1929.

--May 15, 1982

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