Read time: 9 min.

I’m in a lot of local history groups on social media. Some of the most poignant posts come from people who’ve made the bittersweet realization that all the schools they once attended have been demolished. If that’s all it takes to become a graybeard, I’m well on my way- at least sort of. In 2020, a big chunk of Yorktown Middle School was torn down. A new building occupies the site today.

I drive past Yorktown Middle School every day on my way to work. The new building has stood for a couple of years now, but it’s still a sobering reminder of the impermanence of things, even the institutions that once seemed immutable when we were kids. That said, the concept of replacing a school is far from new. Yorktown’s first schoolhouse was built in 1842¹! Two more followed, including one put up in 1880 that still stands today.

In 1898, a four-room school with a sixty-five-foot belfry² was completed at West High and South Broadway streets. Twenty-four years later, it underwent a dramatic transformation. Its tower and hipped roof were removed, its bricks were covered with stucco, and a gymnasium, assembly room, classrooms, and offices were added to its rear³.

My grandpa graduated from there in 1952, and my grandma followed two years later. Unfortunately, growth outpaced the expanded school. By then, the building was overcrowded and dilapidated. It’d been condemned as unsafe for several years and was one of the oldest in the county.

In 1952, the township purchased the site of an abandoned strawboard factory on the east edge of town⁴. The idea to build a new school was a contentious assertion, but Township Trustee Ray Miller was emboldened by reports of plaster and glass falling from the old school’s ceiling.

Miller issued a statement calling it “a fire hazard…in danger of collapse⁵.” Three days later, Delaware County shut the school down so it could undergo inspection. State Fire Marshall A.H. Meister agreed with Miller’s assessment, calling the fifty-six-year-old building “a fire trap…like many others in Indiana⁶.”

Construction finally began on a new consolidated Mt. Pleasant Township School in 1954. Designed by Muncie architects Hamilton and Graham, it was completed two years later. The building consisted of a two-story wing with eighteen grade school classrooms, a three-story wing with fifteen high school classrooms, and a 2,300-seat gymnasium⁷. The 1898 structure was demolished in short order⁸.

The new Yorktown school was massive compared to its predecessor, but it soon proved too small for the growing community. In 1958, four elementary classrooms were added to the building’s northeast side, followed by sixteen more and a small gymnasium in 1964. The district completed a second elementary, Pleasant View, the following year. In 1968, a new high school was built for $3 million⁹.

After the new buildings were completed, the old high school wing of the 1956 structure became Yorktown Middle School. The rest of the building became Yorktown Elementary. The Yorktown Tigers still used the old gym, and new libraries were added in 1972. Three years later, a second gymnasium and new home economics, industrial arts, and music rooms were added to the building’s northwest corner¹⁰.

I went to Yorktown Elementary for three years. All the additions made it look like Ron Groves’ fanciful plan from fifty years prior! My third-grade classroom was built in 1964, my fourth-grade room was from 1958, and I spent fifth grade in part of the original structure. What I remember most was the building’s bizarre layout.

One hallway ended abruptly. Another hung over the hillside. The sixth-grade hall of the middle school sat on top of the elementary’s fifth-grade classrooms, and I had to walk through the middle school to get to the band room! Unfortunately, fifth-grade band was the only instructional time I spent in the middle school. I toured it in anticipation of sixth grade but switched districts before the start of the new year.

The building’s awkward layout was due to Yorktown’s explosive population growth. About 4,700 people lived in Yorktown when I was in third grade, up from about 2,000 when the school received its last addition. Administrators had to carve out room wherever they could!

Yorktown’s population had practically doubled by 2010. By 2020, enrollment at the elementary and middle schools had grown by four hundred students since the building was last added to¹¹. Fresh off a $5 million expansion of Pleasant View Elementary, Officials decided to move forward with a $19 million project to replace the original high school wing with a 42,000 square foot block of twenty classrooms, offices, and a new media center¹².

Work progressed at an astounding rate! Most of the old high school was gone by Thanksgiving 2020. Aside from the new middle school area, the project called for a detached superintendent’s office to be removed so a second elementary gymnasium could replace it.

The rest of the school was left standing, including the gym that served as the home court for varsity Tigers long after the new high school was built¹³. I played there as part of elementary-age intramural leagues, and I’m glad it’s still there.

A new steel skeleton to bridge the sixty-five-year-old wings was in place by April 2021. The project was completed a year later. Officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the improved middle school on May 16, 2022. Aesthetically, the new structure is strikingly different than the old. Even the elementary wing got a new facade to house a new, secure entrance!

Frankly, I don’t care for the new look. The additions would be fine on their own, but they look tacky and incohesive with the rest of the structure. I’m happy to talk about the old school’s labyrinthine layout until the cows come home, but at least all the additions used the same shades of brick. For better or worse, I think I’m predisposed to that line of thinking: when I was fifteen, the district I left Yorktown for added a $6 million, 32,000-square-foot auxiliary gym to the west side of the building.

I covered the project for Cowan High School newspaper. The new gym featured three basketball courts, a track, and a weight room. It was astonishingly luxurious for a rural school with thirty-seven graduating seniors the year it was built. I made good use of it, but I never got over the gym’s appearance. The existing school was faced with dark red brick, but the fieldhouse used buff blocks and aluminum!

Fortunately, I don’t have to care for the design choices. Yorktown’s construction project was tax-neutral. I live in the township, but I haven’t been a student there in twenty years. I was only ever in the middle school’s band room and gym, anyway, and both rooms remain standing. Aside from passing it every day, I have no stake in the new structure.

That said, photos of the media center, elementary gym, and other new spaces represent a night-and-day difference from the aging and cramped facilities of my youth. It’s extremely nice- cutting edge, really. I’m sure students, teachers, and administrators are thrilled with how the project turned out. In fact, I know they are.

Still, it’s a strange sensation to become so old that some of the physical spaces that shaped my formative years have succumbed to the forces of change. Whether I truly went there or not, the old Yorktown Middle School was a landmark of my childhood.

The building’s familiar brick walls might be gone, but the essence of what made Yorktown Middle School special to the community remains intact behind its sleek new facade. From its earliest one room schools to this newest structure, Yorktown’s educational journey continues. I’m glad to have been a part of it.

Sources Cited
1 Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (pp. 268–269). book, Kingman Brothers.
2 Sanborn Map Company. (1902). Yorktown. Insurance Maps of Muncie Indiana. map, New York, NY; Sanborn Map Company.
3 Bids for Yorktown’s New High School Will Be Received April 1. (1922, March 20). The Muncie Evening Press, pp. 1–1. 
4 Strawboard Site’ Purchased for New Yorktown School. (1952, March 2). The Muncie Star, p. 1.
5 Yorktown Mother Takes Children From ‘Fire Trap’. (1954, February 3). The Muncie Evening Press, p. 1.
6 Judge’s Decision on Yorktown School Awaits State Reports. (1954, February 12). The Muncie Star, p. 1.
7 Gym, High School, Elementary Buildings to Be Built at Yorktown. (1954, March 24). The Muncie Star, p. 1.
8 State Orders Old Yorktown School Razed. (1956, March 29). The Muncie Star, p. 5.
9 McKinsey, D. (1968, July 18). New Yorktown High School Nears Completion. The Muncie Star, p. 29.
10 Lough, L. (1974, August 13). Board Told Yorktown School to Be Ready. The Muncie Star. p. 8.
11 Ohlenkamp, C. (2020, February 26). Yorktown district to start $19 million renovations to middle and elementary school. The Muncie Star Press. Web. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
12 Looking Forward (2021, January 3). The Muncie Star Press. p. A1.
13 Cleland, T. (1992, November 24). Central, South set for openers. The Muncie Evening Press. pp. 11-12.