Two rural schools nestled in the heart of the Rush County countryside are stark studies in contrast. The weathered tower of the Washington Township Public School in Raleigh is a sad reminder of the ebb and flow of rural life. A stone’s throw away, the Center Township Grade & High School in neighboring Mays stands as a beacon of hope and renewal.

I’ve written about the ruins of Raleigh High School. Built in 1906, experts believe it replaced the first consolidated school in the country. The road to Raleigh takes you right through Mays, which was platted in 1884 as a station on the Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, & Louisville Railroad¹.

Formal education in Center Township predated Mays’ establishment by more than half a century. In 1830, classes were held in a log cabin owned by David Price. The first purpose-built schoolhouse came fourteen years later. By 1897, the township was home to ten one-room schools. One of them, District 6, stood on the east side of Mays².

Officials decided to build a high school in 1909. Although Mays had grown to become Center Township’s largest community, the people of Center -a crossroads in the middle of the township with a church, a cemetery, and the District 5 schoolhouse- wanted the high school put there instead. A bitter fight broke out between the factions before a two-story Center Township High School Building was completed in 1909³. In Center.

The first Center Township High School stood at the corner of Five Points Road and County Road 900-North, just a mile west of Mays⁴. Unfortunately, it only served kids in grades 1 to 11. Students looking to attend twelfth grade were forced to travel to Rushville High School or the Spiceland Academy in neighboring Henry County.

The people of Mays kind of got their wish soon after the high school was completed, when the Center Township Trustee began planning a new grade school there to replace the newly-condemned District 6 schoolhouse⁵. A two-room elementary was completed in 1912 just as Center Township’s rural schools began to close. By 1921, only three -the high school, the elementary, and the Shively’s Corner schoolhouse that stood on Rushville Road- remained in service⁶.

Mays’ fortunes changed in 1929 when officials announced plans to erect a $65,000 combined Center Township Grade & High School there⁷. The project was a community affair. Three botany students at Center School won prizes in a contest to landscape the new school grounds⁸. Moreover, a hundred and fifty volunteers with three tractors, eight teams, scoops, and a “battalion” of shovels turned up to level the schoolyard out⁹. It wasn’t long before locals began referring to the institution as the Mays School.

C.E. Werking of Richmond designed the building itself. Werking established himself from a correspondence course and was best known for single-family homes, but his plans for the structure combined elements from the Classical Revival and Prairie School architectural modes¹⁰. With a hipped roof, a projecting central gable, and an integrated barrel-vaulted gym, the red brick structure stands two stories above a raised basement.

Elsewhere, Doric pilasters that support stone entablatures frame its primary entrances. An octagonal cupola was part of a building-wide ventilation system that still worked when the school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004¹¹. Inside, the building is laid out like a wide letter H. Despite some modern concessions like drop ceilings and carpet, most of the building remains the same as when it was first built. The halls still feature decorative ceilings and glazed brick walls, and most rooms feature wooden floors, doors, trim, closets, and chair rails.

The gym features ten rows of elevated bleachers along its northern wall and a stage along the south. Two bow-arch iron trusses support the ceiling above the basketball court that served as the home of the Mays Tigers for thirty-six years. There, the Tigers swept the Sir Walters of Raleigh two games to none in 1949, winning 46 to 27 and 56 to 20¹². If ever there was a rivalry between the neighboring schools, it certainly didn’t play out on the basketball court!

The school at Mays served students from grades 1 to 12 until 1964 when kindergarten classes were added. Two years later, fortunes changed when Center became the eighth township in Rush County to join the Rushville Consolidated School System. Mays’ high schoolers were sent there in 1966¹³, and students in the middle grades joined them in 1968.

The building continued in service as an elementary into the new millennium. In 2009, a $500,000 project even added air conditioning and heating¹⁴. Despite the improvements, the building’s fate was cloudy after officials replaced aging facilities in Arlington and Milroy with modern elementary schools¹⁵.

Several years later, the school board announced that Mays Elementary would close at the end of the 2014-15 term. Residents of Mays remained passionate about education, and local boosters immediately mounted a grassroots campaign to convert the building to the Mays Community Academy charter school¹⁶. Against all odds, students still learn and thrive within its ninety-five-year-old walls.

Despite their different fates, the schools at Mays and Raleigh continue to impact their communities profoundly. One may serve as a reminder of the challenges facing rural areas, but the other embodies the promise of tomorrow. The remains of Raleigh High School may be a relic from a bygone era, but, as Mays Community Academy, the old Center Township Grade & High School remains a place where the echoes of the past mingle with the dreams of the future.

Sources Cited
1 History of Rush County, Indiana (1888). Brant & Fuller [Chicago]. Book.
2 Atlas of Rush County, Indiana (1879). J.H. Beers & Co. [Chicago]. Map.
3 Would Condemn Ground For Site (1912, April 25). The Rushville Republican. p. 1.
4 Wangersheim, W. (1908). Center Township, Rush County, Indiana. Rushville Publishing Company. Map.
5 (See footnote 3). 
6 National Register of Historic Places, Center Township Grade and High School, Mays, Rush County, Indiana, National Register # 04000211.
7 Notice of Determination To Issue Bonds of Center School Township and also Center Civil Township (1929, May 1). The Rushville Republican. p. 2.
8 Center Pupils In Landscape Contest (1930, April 19). The Rushville Republican. p. 1.
9 Community Day Held At Mays School house (1930, June 4). The Rushville Republican. p. 1.
10 (See footnote 6).
11 (See footnote 6).
12 Rushville vs. Mays (1949, February 24). The Rushville Republican. p. 4.
13 No Objection Registered In School Case (1966, March 15). The Rushville Republican. p. 1. 
14 Green, K. (2009, March 11). Mays school renovation moving forward. The Rushville Republican. p. 1.
15 Denzler, F. (2015, March 10). Future of Mays Elementary may be decided Tuesday. The Rushville Republican. p. 1.
16 Thurston, K. (2015, March 27). MCA focus is hands on learning. The Rushville Republican. p. 1.