Kendallville Rotary Club
History & Membership

Club History:

The first meeting of the Kendallville Rotary Club was held on Friday, March 15, 1918, at the Gawthrop Inn, 115 N. Main St., Kendallville.

For over a hundred years, the Kendallville Rotary Club has brought business and professional leaders together to serve the community. And it has promoted the purpose of Rotary International: providing humanitarian services, encouraging high ethical standards in all vocations and advancing goodwill and peace around the world.

The founding of the Kendallville Rotary Club in the late winter of 1918 was largely due to the efforts of state Sen. Clarence J. Munton of Kendallville. He was the superintendent of the Fort Wayne & Northwestern Railway Co., which operated the interurban railroad line from Fort Wayne to Kendallville.

President Munton said it was not the idea to push any particular movement as a club, “but for each member to practice Rotarism as an individual, casting his influence for those things that mean the upliftment of the community.”