My brother John has been my travel companion on visits to a handful of Indiana courthouses. Near the end of a trip to Logansport, he turned to me and asked if I’d been to LaProig County yet. Of course I hadn’t, but his question sparked a brotherly conspiracy: we’d create an entire backstory for the fictional county, imagine a courthouse, and post about it! Anderson’s old North Side Junior High School was a perfect stand-in for modern version. I snapped some photos of it but missed my April 1st deadline. Damn.
I’ll return to LaProig County some unsuspecting spring, but North Side Junior High deserves its own moment in the spotlight. It seems like another typical mid-century school at first glance, but its real story lies with its students, graduates, and the proud legacy of the North Side Braves! I can’t recount the entire history of the place, but I’m happy to recount how captivated I was by its folded plate architecture.
North Side Junior High was planned in 1965 to relieve congestion at an older school still standing at Vinyard and Poplar Streets1. The building would stand at a site at the corner of Cross Street and Indiana Avenue, and Anderson Community Schools entrusted the design of its newest school to Arthur Denning.
A jack-of-all-trades, Henning had a rich portfolio that included Forest Hills and Southview Elementary, South Side Junior High, Anderson’s Masonic Temple, and the local UAW-CIO-AFL Union Hall. In 1962, he even submitted drawings for a U-shaped county building that would wrap around the old Madison County Courthouse2. Unfortunately, it was never built.
Much of North Side isn’t much different from a typical school, but its zig-zag canopies caught my eye. They almost looked like Googie, a futuristic style of modern architecture that evolved from Streamline Moderne3. As I dived deeper, I discovered that those distinctive rooflines were actually part of the mid-century modern approach4. Technically, they’re known as “folded plate” roofs5, and North Side’s bus shelters are classic examples.
I examined Arthur Henning’s other buildings, especially his schools, as I searched for more distinctive zig-zags. Some, like Forest Hills and Southview, have intriguing, boxy canopies. Nevertheless, none are quite like what I found at North Side. In fact, none of Anderson’s junior highs, middle schools, or intermediaries seem to share the same design philosophy, nor do any of Henning’s other projects. As best I can tell, North Side is unique. I think that’s fascinating!
What compelled Arthur Denning to add these weird canopies to North Side? I can’t say. Nevertheless, the building’s classroom wing was completed by the fall of 19676. Work on the rest of the school progressed, and the school was ready in short order7. Ultimately, the $1.8 million campus took up thirty-two acres! With a capacity to serve 1,050 students, the building featured a 1,200-seat gym, twenty-six classrooms, and space for science labs, home economics, art, music, band, theater, a cafeteria, a vocational shop, and offices8.
My own junior high school featured most of those accommodations, but a folded plate roof wasn’t part of it. That difference is why I chose it as the stand-in for a modern LaProig County Courthouse. Architects and engineers deserve equal credit for the elegance of a folded plate design9, as they exude a sort of whimsical, structural elegance that wouldn’t be out of place in a new formalist courthouse. Indeed, I’ve seen similar canopies at the New Albany-Floyd County City-County Building in southern Indiana.
Unfortunately, aesthetics alone aren’t enough to save an aging school in a post-industrial city. North Side was eventually demoted from its status as a junior high to a middle school. It was closed in 2013 after Anderson Community Schools began to retract its physical footprint due to changing enrollment patterns.
In 2018, 1,500 students within the city’s bounds attended one of twenty-three other public school districts! 700 more attended private schools on scholarships, and 1,200 more attended public charters. The exodus cost the district $15 million in funding, around sixteen percent of its budget10.
Today, the old North Side Junior High School is mothballed. In 2016, Anderson’s Liberty Christian School tried buying the building for $700,000 but officials demurred. The school board cited a turning tide11, but 2023 saw the district’s enrollment decline for the sixth year in a row12. When it came time to open a new intermediate school in 2019, the city’s shuttered East Side Middle School was chosen instead13.
I pass North Side occasionally on my way home and its condition only seems to worsen with every passing month. Who knows what will happen to it? I can’t say I do. North Side Junior High may never serve as a school again, but its folded plate awnings would have made it the perfect LaProig County Courthouse. Now that the secret’s out about LaProig, I’m going to need a new stand-in before the next April Fools’ Day. Sadly, I doubt that any good news about North Side will emerge by then.
Sources Cited
1 Proceed On New School Plans (1966, May 18). The Anderson Herald. p. 1.
2 Commissioners Confer Over Courthouse (1966, July 6). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 1.
3 Novak, M. (2012, June 15). Google: Architecture of the Space Age. smithsonian.com [Washington]. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
4 Magee, C. (2009, July 21). Mid Century Modern Scavenger Hunt – Zig Zag Roof. Cincinnati Moderation. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
5 Vaccaro, A. (2018, August 13). Midcentury Roof Lines. brick&batten [Decatur]. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
6 New Secondary School Districts (1966, April 15). The Anderson Herald. p. 1.
7 Interior Work Advanced At North Side JHS (1967, May 20). The Anderson Herald. p. 1.
8 Two-story classroom wing completed by fall, 1967 (School, 1967).
9 Alter, L. (2021, July 19). Folded Plate Roofs Are Back, and Now in Mass Timber. Treehugger [New York]. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
10 Herron, A. & Fittes, E. (2017, November 21). Here’s why two Indiana school systems went broke. And others are in danger. The Indianapolis Star. Web. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
11 Bibbs, R. (2016, November 9). ACS board rejects Liberty Christian’s request to by North Side Middle School. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
12 Inside the year-long process to create Anderson schools’ strategic plan (2023, O October 24). Anderson Community Schools [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
13 (Bibbs, R. (2019, July 28). ACS kicks off school year with opening of new intermediate school. The Anderson Herald-Bulletin. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
Ah, Indiana’s mythical 93rd county. I have heard that it can only be entered on February 29th every 4 years, and that you had best be out by sundown lest you be stuck there subject to vagrancy charges for 4 years.
Those folded plate roofs were popular on car dealers for awhile. I think I remember one on the old Poinsatte Chry-Ply in downtown Fort Wayne.
Very interesting. I’ll have to try and find a postcard! They’re rare these days.
Also, I literally laughed out loud!