Read time: 6 min.

Yesterday, my friend Brett Yoder of Hoosier Gym Journey pointed out something that I hadn’t considered: just a river apart, Gas City and Jonesboro both still retain their old high school buildings! Jonesboro’s is on borrowed time, but across the Mississinewa, Gas City’s stunning Richardson Romanesque high school still stands tall, repurposed as senior apartments. I had to dig into its story.

Gas City wasn’t always Gas City. When Noah Harris founded the community in 1867, he called it Harrisburg. Everything changed in the late 1880s, when the Indiana Gas Boom came roaring through. By 1892, the newly formed Gas City Land Company inspired a name change¹, but the transformation didn’t stop there. Within a year, fifteen factories popped up².  The town’s population skyrocketed from just 145 to a staggering 3,622 people in a decade. That’s a jaw-dropping 2,397% increase!

At first, area students went to frame schools situated in two-mile intervals around Mill Township. By 1870, nearly three hundred students attended classes at six one-room schoolhouses³. Harrisburg’s first school, a three-room brick structure, was built at North A and First Street in 1874 to serve elementary students. A graded school followed three years later.

The first high school in Gas City, though, was itinerant. Upper grades were first taught downtown in a building on Second Street, but students eventually moved to a building at the corner of First and Main⁴. From there, they relocated to the first floor of the Mississinewa Hotel⁵. Pupils finally moved to the new Gas City High School in 1895.

That Gas City High School faces South A Street to the north. Designed by John Waldron, its asymmetrical front is composed of three different sections. The first, to the east, spans four bays topped by a gable. The middle section features what’s left of a central entrance tower. The western segment, spanning five bays, features a broken cornice and dormer. The most interesting component is what’s underneath the remains of the tower⁶. A large, rusticated stone entranceway rises from Doric columns to provide access to a pair of wooden doors.

In 1923, an unadorned prairie-style annex designed by the original architect⁷ was built to connect to the high school building by a three-story brick hyphen. Just like the main building, the annex faces north. It features three bays divided by a pair of fluted pilasters that frame the widest, central portion of the structure. There, a projecting entryway is home to double doors. The structure features windows of various sizes -one of which was boarded up when I visited- and is capped with a hipped asphalt roof. 

Inside, the original portion of the old Gas City High School’s first story housed corner classrooms that surrounded an octagonal rotunda. Classrooms on the second floor were grouped around a similar area. Above the classrooms, an unfinished attic featured brick walls that supported the old belfry. Below, the basement was home to a cafeteria, restrooms, and lab facilities⁸. 

Meanwhile, the central entrance of the 1923 addition opens to a hallway with a staircase. One flight leads below grade, where the first floor features a gymnasium with a stage flanked by locker rooms. Steps headed to the second floor feature an entrance to the gym balcony at a landing, while the second floor has more locker rooms, five classrooms, a larger room used for typing, and another used as the library⁹. 

Unfortunately, Gas City High School became overcrowded around the same time Mill Creek Township’s remaining one-room schoolhouses began bursting at the seams. Citizens requested better accommodations for their kids, and a new Mill Creek Township High School was established in 1947. To reflect the change, the name of the old Gas City High School was changed to Mississinewa Joint High School in 1948⁹. From there, the school became home to high school students from all over the township, including nearby Jonesboro. Elementary students followed in 1950.

A new Mississinewa High School was completed at the west end of Gas City in 1951. The old Gas City High School became known as the East Ward School, then became East Elementary School in 1977 after a second Mississinewa High School was completed on South Garthwaite Road. A new East Elementary School had been built in front of the old high school a decade prior. After its closure in 1992, it became the corporation office for Mississinewa Community Schools. 

In 2004, the old Gas City High School got another new lease on life- this time as a home for seniors. The 30,000-square-foot building was transformed into Gas City School Apartments, featuring thirteen one-bedroom and six two-bedroom units spread across 15,000 square feet of living space. Much of the building’s character was preserved, including the original gymnasium, which stayed largely untouched. In a creative twist, six of the one-bedroom apartments were actually built above the gym¹⁰.

For a former boomtown, Gas City has held onto a surprising amount of its past. While Jonesboro’s high school is preparing for its final bell, Gas City’s still stands. What began as a makeshift education in borrowed spaces grew into a cornerstone of the community that continues that legacy as home to those who remember when it was still full of lockers, chalkboards, and pep rallies. In a world where so many historic school buildings are left to rot or razed without ceremony, Gas City High School is a reminder that the places we once learned in can still teach us something, even if the lessons look a little different now.

Sources Cited
1 Gas City History (n.d.). City of Gas City, Indiana [Gas City]. Web. Retrieved July 20, 2025. 
2 National Register of Historic Places, Gas City High School, Gas City, Grant County, Indiana, National Register # 03001316.
3 (See footnote 1). 
4 Gas City’s 50th Anniversary Jubilee and Homecoming 1892 – 1942 (1942, September 23, 24, 25). The Gas City Journal. 1942. 
5 The Epoch (1907). Gas City High School [Gas City]. Yearbook. 
6 Alexander, G. (2020, April 1). Gas City HS pre 1923. Old Schools of Indiana. Flickr. Web. Retrieved July 20, 2025. 
7 (see footnote 2). 
8 (see footnote 2). 
9 (See footnote 4). 
10 Gas City School Apartments Gets $346,700 Grant (2004, July 28). The Twin City Journal-Reporter. p. 1.