I wasn’t sure that Fall Creek Township’s Lukens schoolhouse still existed. The Madison County Historian didn’t think it did either, but I found compelling testimony from someone who lived there as a child that made me believe the building was still standing in truncated form. If I’m right, what’s left of the old schoolhouse no longer resembles one.
The most recent District 5 schoolhouse in Fall Creek Township was built in 1889 at the northwestern corner of South County Road 300-West and West County Road 1000-South1. A predecessor built in 1876 as one of Fall Creek Township’s first brick schools sat on the site prior to that time2. The school received its common name after William A. Lukens, who deeded its land to the township3.
In 1906, the District 5 school was consolidated into the larger District 3 schoolhouse at Spring Valley about three and a half miles northeast4. The Spring Valley schoolhouse closed in the late 1920s as the second-to-last schoolhouse in Fall Creek Township to consolidate into Pendleton5.
After its closure, the Lukens school was renovated into a home. Its roofline was altered in the 1950s after a significant storm damaged the building. Starting in the 1970s, it was added onto several times6.
Sources Cited
1 Forkner, J. & Dyson, B. (1914). Historical Sketches and Reminiscences of Madison County, Indiana. book. Anderson, IN.
2 Kingman Brothers. (1880). History of Madison County, Indiana with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Chicago, IL.
3 (See footnote 1).
4 Elwood Is Leading In School Enumeration As Might Have Been Anticipated (1906, May 18). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 3.
5 Old School Sold (1933, September 18). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1.
6 Wyatt, D. If you grew up in Pendleton, IN. (2019, January 21). We lived in the old Luken”s school house, at 300 west and 1000 south. It had been remodeled in the [Comment]. Facebook. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
We lived there from 1960 until 1972. My parents moved back to that house in 1977 and added on to the west side of it.