Aside from 268 people, the Grant County community of Fowlerton, Indiana, is home to a handful of old commercial buildings along its main drag. One with an angled entryway looks like it might have been a turn-of-the-century bank! My favorite feature, though, is an old schoolhouse. The sturdy brick building anchors the northern edge of the tiny town.
Fowlerton’s first school was built in 1839. An 18×20 foot log cabin, the structure sat on land donated by Abraham Myers1. Sixty years later, a two-room brick school designed by B.L. French rose on the same site2.
I might be reading them wrong, but old maps seem to indicate that the Fowlerton schoolhouse served students from Fairmount Township’s District 7. Unfortunately, the building quickly proved to be too small. Eight years after it opened, Trustee Alvin J. Wilson added two more rooms3. The project was part of a broader wave of school improvements in the area that included new brick buildings for the nearby Leachburg and Grant schools4.
The Fowlerton schoolhouse became part of the Metropolitan School District of Madison-Grant Counties in the mid-1960s. It’s hard to believe, but students in grades 1-3 still attended class there until 19705! Officials cited the costs of repairing an expensive boiler and maintaining lunch services for fewer than sixty kids as reasons for its closure6.
Fortunately, the Fowlerton Lions Club purchased the old building for $2,000 in 19717. The organization still owns it, but I’m unsure whether or not it’s active. Google, for example, says the club is permanently closed.
Sources Cited
1 Fowlerton school caught in the middle. The Marion Chronicle Tribune. p. 13.
2 New School Building (1899, April 21). The Grant County News [Marion]. p. 2.
3 (See footnote 1).
4 Fairmount (1907, December 17). The Marion News-Tribune. p. 2.
5 (See footnote 1).
6 (See footnote 1).
7 Fairmount News (1971, July 28). The Marion Chronicle Tribune. p. 17.
