The tiny community of Dunreith sits on US 40 in Henry County’s rural Spiceland Township. Platted in 1865 by Emery Dunreith Coffin1, the community’s first school was a frame structure built just after the Civil War ended2.
The first school in Dunreith served for more than forty years before it was condemned in 1908. The Knightstown Banner took the news with tongue firmly planted in cheek. “The public school buildings of Spiceland township are apparently under a ban of some kind,” the paper wrote.
“Two years ago the State Board of Health poured hot lava down the backs of the patrons of the public schools at Spiceland by proclaiming the building unfit for school purposes. Now comes the local health board of Dunreith which condemns the schoolhouse there3.”
Apparently, the old schoolhouse suffered from poor lighting, imperfect heat, and bad ventilation. Officials deemed it dangerous to public health4! As a result, the Spiceland Township Trustee completed plans for a new schoolhouse. The brick building would be located just outside Dunreith’s corporate limits. Paid for by the township, it replaced the old frame landmark that had been condemned5.
The new school at Dunreith served until 1943 when its students were transferred to Spiceland. It was one of three one-room schools remaining in Henry County, leaving the schoolhouses in Honey Creek and Mechanicsburg, both of which remain standing, as the final examples of an earlier era of education6.
Today, the old Dunreith school hasn’t been restored as much as it has been adapted into a home. It hardly looks like it did during the years when students were present.
Sources Cited
1 Hazzard, G. (1906). Hazzard’s History of Henry County Indiana, Volume II. 3 George Hazzard [New Castle]. Book.
2 New School At Dunreith (1908, July 20). The Muncie Star. p. 6.
3 Is Unfit For Public Purposes (1908, May 22). The Knightstown Banner. p. 1.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 (See footnote 2).
6 From Our Files (1958, September 23). The Rushville Republican [Rushville]. p. 4.
I sometimes wonder if those old condemnations weren’t inside jobs to justify a new building project. Yes, I’m a cynic.
I wouldn’t be shocked. It seems pretty common with buildings that have continued to stand a hundred years later.