The Kilgore school was probably the first school in Mt. Pleasant Township¹. It took its name from the man who taught its first classes, David Kilgore. He later achieved a reputation as a judge and an Indiana state representative and, eventually, Muncie’s part of the turnpike that connected it with Yorktown was named after him².

Born in Harrison County, Kentucky, Kilgore came to the Yorktown area after he was admitted to the bar in 1830. The following year, he began teaching students in an abandoned cabin on Jonathan Bentley’s farm³. In 1851, David Kilgore deeded a half-acre of his property to Mt. Pleasant Township for the construction of a schoolhouse⁴. By 1874, a wood-frame schoolhouse was erected just west of the present-day intersection of Indiana State Road 32 and West County Road 300-South⁵. 

In 1878 -six months before his death- Kilgore granted the township trustee three-quarters of an acre for construction of a newer, brick schoolhouse at the northeast corner of State Road 32 and Priest Ford Road⁶. The schoolhouse lasted until 1907, when a pro-consolidation law passed that compelled county trustees to send its pupils elsewhere when the building’s average attendance dropped below twelve students⁷. S.Z. Pittenger was the last teacher at the District 9 school⁸.

Today, the old District 9 schoolhouse is a home. 

Sources Cited
1 Kemper, G. W. H. (1908). Education in Delaware County. In A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1. book, Lewis Publishing Company.
2 Olson III, A. A. (2012). Tracking the Political Career of David Kilgore Across Pioneer & Civil War Era Indiana. Muncie. 
3 (See footnote 1).
4 Delaware County, Indiana. (1851, June 24). Deed Book 12. p. 309.
5 History of the Mount Pleasant Township School System. (1956). Delaware County Historical Alliance. p. 1.
6 Delaware County, Indiana. (1878, June 26). Deed Book 43. p. 207.
7 Law Will Close School (1907, April 13). The Muncie Star. p. 10.
8 Delaware County Public Schools. (1907). School directory, Delaware County publicschools, Delaware County, Indiana 1907-1928. Muncie, IN.