Read time: 2 min.

You’d hardly know it today given its level of suburban sprawl, but rural Noblesville Township, which surrounds the seat of Hamilton County, was once home to a whopping fourteen rural district schools. The last to close was known as Wheeler¹.

An early iteration of the District 10 school stood on land situated on Clarksville Road owned by P.S. Wheeler in 1866². Twenty-two year later³, officials built a new schoolhouse there, along with others in Clarksville and Little Chicago⁴. Although those two schools closed in the early 1940s, Wheeler held on until 1951⁵. 

Officials were eager to shutter the aging two-room schoolhouse for two main reasons. First, selling the property would help fund land for a much-needed new high school⁶. Second -and perhaps more pressing- was that the building was woefully outdated: aside from electricity, it lacked every modern comfort! Students still relied on two wood-burning stoves for heat and schlepped outside to use the outhouse⁷.

The Wheeler schoolhouse was ultimately auctioned on June 28th, 1952⁸. Wren McKinney, a farmer who lived across the road, won the building for $3,000 and planned to convert it into a residence⁹. Today, the building appears to remain one. 

Sources Cited
1 Auwaerter, A. (1988, September 29). Readin’, ritin’ and ‘rithmetic. The Noblesville Ledger. p. 123. 
2 Warner, C.S. (1866). Map of Hamilton County, Indiana. C.A.O. McClellan & C.S. Warner [Waterloo City]. Map. 
3 (See footnote 1).  
4 (See footnote 1). 
5 Wheeler School To Be Sold; Seek H.S. Site (1952, May 22). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 1. 
6 Wheeler School To Be Sold; Seek H.S. Site (1952, May 22). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 1. 
7 Abandoned As School Wheeler Up For Sale (1952, June 27). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 1. 
8 Notice of Sale of School Property (1952, May 29). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 5. 
9 Township’s Last Little Red School House Sold (1952, July 1). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 1.