The tiny Grant County community of Fowlerton isn’t on the way to anywhere, but 268 people still call it home. An old schoolhouse anchors the north end of town, but much of Leach Avenue -Fowlerton’s main drag- has long shed its commercial storefronts. All except one, that is: a lone survivor anchors the southeast corner of Leach and West Second Street. On a recent drive through town, I found myself slowing down and wondering about it.

Muncie is home to three old Thunderbolt tornado sirens. One of them, at Southview Elementary, still works as intended! Another at the old Riley Elementary has a broken chopper and sort of just languidly wheezes there. I thought the last one, at what was once Morrison-Mock Elementary School, was still in sterling standing! Unfortunately, it no longer rotates. 

In 1966, Marsh Supermarkets caused a stir across the Midwest when it jumped into the rapidly growing convenience-store business. Over the next four decades, the company built its Village Pantry brand into a regional powerhouse by opening 154 locations across Indiana and Ohio! Today, some have taken on new lives under different names. Whenever I stumble across one, I can’t resist snapping a photo.

Five years ago, I launched a mission to track down every old schoolhouse in Madison County, Indiana. By the time I finished, I’d located forty-five of them. Some were standing, some were hanging on, and others were crumbling into ruins. Unfortunately, my total of forty-five has dropped by one: I recently discovered that the house I believed was Fall Creek Township’s old Spring Valley School wasn’t the school at all. It was close, though! Let me explain: