A weathered boulder sits beside the road just north of tiny Blountsville, Indiana. Most people probably pass it without a second glance, but I couldn’t! I was in town to dig up Blountsville’s old flowing well, but something about that unassuming stone tugged at me. What made the place worth remembering? I had to find out.
Named after one of its founders, the town of Blountsville was platted in 18321. Three years later, a post office opened its doors2. Today, the town’s home to a fire department, several churches, and the Cardinal Greenway rail trail, but just ninety-eight people call Blountsville home. It’s the kind of place where the past still hums beneath the surface if you’re quiet enough to listen.
The boulder I spied marks the site of the town’s old school and says the first Blountsville School opened in 1835. If so, it was probably a log cabin since frame and brick structures didn’t really come into the picture until the 1850s. The first Blountsville school I found a record of was a structure that was condemned by the state board of health in 1917. Despite its hazardous nature, the schoolhouse was permitted to be used up until 1921, when Stony Creek Township trustee Anson Thompson tried to raise $67,000 for a replacement3.
What should have been a straightforward plan quickly turned into a legal tangle. The county superintendent of schools selected a plot owned by Thompson himself, but he believed the land was worth twice the amount listed in the appraisal4. That set off an early dispute. On top of that, the tiny population of Stoney Creek Township made traditional school funding nearly impossible.
Any new construction had to be financed through a complicated, controversial system of bonds achieved by cooking the books. As the legal battle dragged on, fifty students stood in solidarity, continuing to gather at the shuttered schoolhouse to prove its closure wasn’t due to a lack of attendance5. The fight made it all the way to the state Supreme Court, which, in 1923, struck down a mandate that bonds be issued for the new building6.
Evidently, the old Blountsville School remained in use until 1929, when it was lost to fire7. In the aftermath, students from Stoney Creek Township found themselves learning wherever space could be found; first in a garage, then in the town’s First Christian Church8. Relief came when Township Trustee G.M. Burch stepped in with a plan to build a brand-new four-room schoolhouse for $25,0009. Construction wrapped up in 1930, and the building served the town’s grade-school students for nearly four decades.
In 1952, the small Randolph County communities of Modoc, Losantville, and Huntsville came together to form Union High School about seven miles west of Blountsville. Five years later, a brand-new high school building opened its doors. The next big change came in 1968, when a $930,000 wing with twelve elementary classrooms was added10. With that expansion, the days of Blountsville’s local school came to an end as students in grades one through six from Stoney Creek Township moved to the new consolidated facility.
The following year, Union School Corporation agreed to tear down the abandoned Blountsville school11. The Union School is in jeopardy today, but least the simple boulder north of Blountsville still marks the presence of one of its predecessors.
Sources Cited
1 Hazzard, G. (1906). Hazzard’s History of Henry County Indiana, Volume II. 3 George Hazzard [New Castle]. Book.
2 “Henry County”. Jim Forte Postal History. Web. Retrieved April 13, 2025.
3 Fifty Children May Be Deprived of Instruction (1921, September 2). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 2.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 Children to go to Blountsville (1921, September 2). The Muncie Star. p. 7.
6 Blountsville school case is reversed by Supreme Court (1923, December 15. The Muncie Star. p. 6.
7 Greene, D. (1969, March 27). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 4.
8 Newcastle Short Notes (1930, February 15). The Muncie Star. p. 7.
9 Will Enlarge Grade School (1929, December 13). The Muncie Star. p. 3.
10 Thomas, L. (1968, July 26). Union School Will Expand. The Muncie Star. p. 15.
11 Will Level Building at Blountsville (1969, November 10). The Muncie Star. p. 9.
