Lafayette Township’s District 9 schoolhouse in Madison County was known as Closser. It sits at the northeast corner of today’s West County Road 300-N and North County Road 500-W. In 1880, 300-N was known as the Anderson and Perkinsville Pike, a toll road that connected those two communities¹. The schoolhouse got its name from the family that originally deeded its location to the township. 

A District 9 schoolhouse was built in 1878², though it seems as that the core of the present structure dates to 1899³. Along with the Prairie, Keller, Beech Grove, Elm Grove, Salem, and Florida schoolhouses, the Closser school closed in 1932 when Lafayette Township’s Leach school, -a consolidated, six-room building- was built near the center of the township⁴. 

In modern times, the old District 9 schoolhouse survives as a home. It’s another old schoolhouse that was reconfigured in a way that obscures its original function. Nevertheless, the building fits the two mile rule, the core structure is still visible, and it’s surrounded by old trees. Just to be sure, I contacted Steve Jackson, the Madison County Historian, to verify that I’d taken a photo of the right building. He confirmed that I’d nailed it.

Sources Cited
1 Kingman Brothers. (1880). History of Madison County, Indiana with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Chicago, IL.
2 Jackson, S.T. (2009, November 14). In History: Township schools set by districts. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Retrieved December 3, 2021 from https://www.heraldbulletin.com/community/in-history-township-schools-set-by-districts/article_21819f32-4eef-5e59-992e-3bad0f213a87.html.
3 Madison County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 48-08-29-300-008.000-017. 4 Leach School to be Dedicated Next Tuesday (1932, August 19). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1.