I might be the only one who sees the brick building on the west side of Sand Pike Road just north of Fairmount and thinks of its days as a schoolhouse. Most folks know it better as Carter’s Motors, the spot where James Dean bought his very first motorcycle back in 19461!
The first Back Creek schoolhouse was a hewed-log building built on Henry Winslow’s land in the 1830s2. It served double duty as the Back Creek Friends Meeting House3. In the 1860s, a school just west of a new meeting house served students from Fairmount Township’s District 14. Both buildings sat at the southwest corner of Sand Pike Road and an early continuation of County Road 750-South that has since disappeared from the map5.
The Quakers eventually built a two-story school next to the meeting house in 18746. The present structure, maybe five hundred feet south of the old one, was erected twenty years later.
I don’t know if James Dean ever attended the old Back Creek school, but it’s plausible, since the family farm he grew up on sits about half a mile up the road. My stepdad’s mom, Pauline Harvey, certainly went there, at least for a little while, in the 1930s.
In 1940, Back Creek was one of just three rural schools in Fairmount Township. Eight students proudly graduated from the eighth grade that year7, but it appears they were the last to attend. In 1941, the township trustee leased the building to the E.C. Adams Products Company8. Two years later, the schoolhouse was put up for sale9.
The old Back Creek school was home to Marvin Carter’s Motorcycle Shop in 194610, when James Dean got his first bike, a 1946 Czech Whizzer11. These days, the old schoolhouse is part of Fairmount’s James Dean Trail12. Signs out front say it’s home to the 9th Street Gang Car Club.
Sources Cited
1 Back Home Again in Indiana: Grant County and James Dean (2012, August 3). Daveland. Web. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
2 McDonald, T.B. (1917, March 19). Making of a Township. The Fairmount News. p. 3.
3 Centennial History of Grant County Indiana (1914). The Lewis Publishing Company [Chicago]. Book.
4 Map of Grant County, Indiana (1861-1869). William Neal & A.C. Overman. [Cincinnati]. Map.
5 About (n.d.) Back Creek Friends. Web. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
6 Fairmount (1939, September 2). The Marion Leader-Tribune. p. 8.
7 (See footnote 6).
8 Fairmount (1941, November 3). The Marion Chronicle Tribune. p. 4.
9 Notice of Sale of Abandoned Schoolhouse (1943, January 21). The Fairmount News. p. 4.
10 Losure, C. (1993, September 27). Dean legend found in Mercurys, motorcycles. The Marion Chronicle Tribune. p. 8.
11 Racing (n.d.). James Dean. Web. Retriebed May 11, 2025.
12 James Dean (n.d.). Grant County Indiana {Marion]. Web. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
