I was never crazy about school. Like most kids, I think, I used to daydream about a snowstorm or power outage canceling class- maybe even a mild natural disaster, just enough to get the day off. I never really wanted anything bad to happen, of course, but maybe someone else did: last summer, the old Jackson Township School -now the Frankton-Lapel school district’s administrative office- was hit by a tornado that destroyed its gym. Nearly a year later, it still hasn’t been rebuilt.
With just sixty-six people per square mile—about a third of Indiana’s average—Jackson Township is decidedly rural. Yet in 1874, it supported ten schoolhouses1. Over time, that number dwindled to two elderly structures, Hamilton and Perkinsville. Unfortunately, kids were out of luck for high school. If they chose to, students spent grades nine through twelve in Lapel or at Walnut Grove in Hamilton County.
An eight-classroom Jackson Township Consolidated School was completed in 1955. Serving students in grades 1-8, the new school became part of the West-Central School District that combined Jackson, Lafayette, Stony Creek, and part of Pipe Creek Township in 19722.
Twenty-two years later, the school board decided to send the Jackson students to the Lapel and Leach elementary schools and remodel the building into an education center3. In 1998, the school district renamed itself as Frankton-Lapel Community Schools and reconfigured the forty-three-year-old school into its administrative offices4.
The building stood quietly for twenty-six years until July 30, 2024. That evening, a cyclone touched down in eastern Hamilton County5 and quickly intensified into an EF-2 tornado. By the time it crossed into Madison County, winds were hitting 130 miles per hour. The storm slammed into the old Jackson Township School6, toppling the gym’s west wall onto the basketball court, crushing school buses beneath fallen beams, and flinging the roof a hundred yards into a nearby cornfield7. Fortunately, no one was injured.
The school district didn’t waste any time. In short order, it brought in a contractor to clear the wreckage8. The mangled steel, crumbled brick, and twisted beams were all hauled away. Nearly a year later, though, there’s still no gym in sight. Where the structure once stood, there’s only a patch of bare earth. What’s left of the old Jackson Township School speaks to the force of Mother Nature and the resilience she demands.
Sources Cited
1 Harden, S. (1874). History of Madison County, Indiana, from 1820 to 1874. book. Markleville, IN.
2 20 Candidates Running for West Central Board. (1972, April 24). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 1.
3 Jackson school to be used as educational center. (1994, April 19). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 1.
4 Frankton board approves new name. (1998, March 13). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 1.
5 Buchman, A. & Houle, C. (2024, July 31). EF-2 tornado with 130 mph winds hits Hamilton, Madison counties. WTHR [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved June 28, 2025.
6 Wiechmann, S. (2024, July 31). Confirmed tornado damages Frankton-Lapel Schools administration building. Indiana Public Radio [Muncie]. Web. Retrieved June 28, 2025.
7 Simmons, T. (2024, June 30). Frankton-Lapel School Admin building damaged by EF-2 tornado Monday night. WRTV [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved June 28, 2025.
8 (See footnote 6).
