Spartanburg is a tiny place. Tucked away in the southwestern corner of Randolph County, the community consists of little more than a bank, two churches, and a park. Despite that, it’s the largest community in Greensfork Township, and the village’s presence is amplified by its old high school, which towered over the community for a hundred years. Today, its ghostly ruins do.
Aside from Spartanburg, several other hamlets like Crete and Arba call Greensfork Township home. Arba was where the area’s first schoolhouse was erected. Built as early as 1815, the school was in a meetinghouse on a hill in the Arba cemetery1. The school had no fireplace or chimney; it was heated by moving hot coals from a fire built outside to the center of the floor. After a few years, the community built a hewed-log meetinghouse and school that was used until 18542.
Six years later, officials erected the first brick schoolhouse in Spartanburg on East First Street3. By 1865, Greensfork Township was home to 13 schools, and Spartanburg’s served District 10. It was renumbered to District 9 in 18744. The following year a two-story, T-shaped schoolhouse with a wooden belfry was completed just south of town for $7,0005.
By 1908, new regulations for graded schools6 forced officials to replace the thirty-three-year-old schoolhouse with a three-story, eight-room high school7 that immediately absorbed the students of the Districts 9, 10, and 11 schoolhouses8. The rest of Greensfork Township’s schoolhouses consolidated over time, with the last -District 2 at Arba- closing down in 19299.
In 1939, officials received a WPA grant for $18,000 that allowed them to significantly expand the school by adding a gymnasium/auditorium that connected to the main building by a two-story hallway. With a 52×68 foot basketball court and a new stage, the project also provided for the removal of an older stage which forced spectators to watch athletic events from a balcony nearly twenty-five feet above the playing surface10.
The enlarged Spartanburg High School was thought of as the finest rural school building in Randolph County11. Unfortunately, things changed: in 1958, Indiana’s State Commission for the Reorganization of School Corporations passed new guidelines for school districts specifying that, at a minimum, each must have a resident school population of at least 1,000 students in terms of average daily attendance, as well as an adjusted assessed valuation of at least $5,000 per pupil in average daily attendance12.
As a result, the school townships of Greensfork, Washington, and Union planned to consolidate into a new district in May 196213. The process failed, as did another attempt the following November. In 1964 Greensfork and Washington Townships finally formed a new district called Randolph Southern14 as the last consolidated school corporation in the county.
The creation of the new school district meant the upper four grades of Spartanburg High School transferred to Lynn at the start of the 1964-65 school year. In exchange, seventh- and eighth-graders at Lynn relocated to Spartanburg15. Fifteen students were members of Spartanburg’s last graduating class16.
Construction of a new, $3.8 million Randolph Southern Junior-Senior High School in Lynn began in April 1974. When it opened midway through the next school year, the building took over grades 7-12 from its predecessor in Lynn. The school at Spartanburg was finally closed after sixty-eight years in operation17.
The empty building was auctioned to the Williams Manufacturing Company for $21,000 in 1976. The corporation made farm gates and hay feeders and converted the school’s gym into a factory18. After several years of being used to store corn, the building spent most of the 2000s abandoned and empty.
In the early morning of March 12, 2012, a fire broke out at the school. It erupted into a blaze of explosions that sent burning embers north toward Spartanburg. All three of the building’s floors were ablaze when sixteen fire departments from as far away as Roseburg and Arcanum, Ohio, made it to the scene19, and officials considered evacuating the town. Firefighters -some of whom had attended classes in the building- eventually took control of the conflagration by 6:30 a.m. and stayed for two more hours extinguishing hot spots20. The news made headlines in Indianapolis, and although I had no connection to it, I decided that I just had to go see the building for myself.
I called into work the next day, picked up my friend Chelsea, and headed to Spartanburg. We parked at the base of the hill in front of the school and made our way up the concrete stairway, which I now recognize was incredibly stupid, reckless, and unsafe. The ground was still smoldering behind the caution tape, and an occasional piece of plaster dropped from the school’s weakened walls. My flip-flops melted into the embers after a minute or so, and we turned back. Up the road, all of Spartanburg’s buildings were coated in ash. It looked like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption, except there was no volcano- only the ruined walls of the old high school, a bank, two churches, and a park.
About a month after the fire, officials ruled that the conflagration resulted from arson21. I’ve been back to the site five or six times over the past eleven years, never venturing beyond my car. Nature has begun to destroy what the fire didn’t consume, including the building’s parapet and most of its walls. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the structure collapses but until then, the remains of Spartanburg High School will loom large over the tiny town it once served as a stark reminder of the community’s past and present.
Sources Cited
1 Bloom, L. (1978, July 22). Highest elevation in state not Arba’s only high point. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 3.
2 Pitts, E. (1997, July 14). Arba has had some high points during its history. The Muncie Star Press. p. 7.
3 Hinshaw, G. (2008). A History of Education in Randolph County, Indiana. Retrieved February 13, 2022.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 Engle, B. (2012, April 14). Arson caused Spartanburg School fire. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 3.
6 Additional Locals (1908, March 4). The Winchester Journal. p. 8.
7 Additional Locals (1908, May 27). The Winchester Journal. p. 10.
8 Knight, M. (1964, May 5). Final Commencement May 22 At Spartanburg High School. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 7.
9 (See footnote 3).
10 Gymnasium-Auditorium Is Dedicated at Spartanburg High School (1939, December 21). The Richmond Palladium-Item and Sun-Telegram. p. 9.
11 Randolph County Interim Report (1998). Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana.
12 Delaware County Committee for the Reorganization of School Corporations. (1959). A Comprehensive plan for the reorganization of school corporations of Delaware County Indiana. Muncie, IN; Delaware County Committee for the Reorganization of School Corporations.
13 Four-Unit Setup OK’d for Randolph (1961, October 6). The Muncie Star. p. 26.
14 (See footnote 3).
15 Spartanburg, Lynn Pupils To Pick Nickname, Colors (1964, March 12). The Richmond Palladium Item and Sun-Telegram. p. 22.
16 (See footnote 8).
17 Peters, K. (1975, December 12). Only Finishing Touches Remain For New Randolph South School. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 33.
18 Spartanburg School Sells For $21,000 (1976, April 25). The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 35.
19 Engle, B. (2012, March 13). Fire damages old Spartanburg School. The Muncie Star Press. p. 4.
20 (See footnote 5).
21 (See footnote 5).
I am always a little sad when a building that was really impressive for its time and place falls into disuse. I live in a place where when property stops being used by one person or company, someone else comes along and does something else with it. In these small communities, it just sits because getting rid of the remains of the building is too costly, and there isn’t much use for it even if the building was not there.