I cruise State Road 26 in rural Grant County, Indiana, every so often. When I’m out in the area, there’s one landmark that never fails to snag my attention: an old schoolhouse-turned-home three miles south of Upland. I’ve snapped photos of several former Grant County schools over the years, but tracking down their histories has been surprisingly tricky. Still, after a little digging, I finally uncovered a little bit about the neat, tidy building I’ve been noticing for years.
The schoolhouse I’ve been so enamored with was once known as Lyon1. It served students in Jefferson Township’s District 62, and I gather it was named after John Lyon, who owned land nearby in the 1860s3. He must have owned it earlier, too, since a Lyon schoolhouse existed as early as 18514.
The building that survives today isn’t nearly as old as that. The Grant County Assessor assigns it a placeholder construction date of 19005, and that’s probably in the right ballpark. T-shaped schoolhouses with front entrances flanked by matching coatrooms were all the rage in the 1890s, and the Lyon schoolhouse fits that pattern.
Unfortunately, that’s about as far as the trail goes for the old Lyon school. Turn-of-the-century newspapers mention Democrats and Republicans using the building for evening meetings6, but beyond that, the record thins out fast. Even its closing date is murky! It had to have shut its doors by 1922, though, when Jefferson Township’s only remaining schools were in Upland, Matthews, and rural outposts in Districts 1, 2, and 117. After that, the Lyon school simply slips quietly out of view.
Sources Cited
1 Strong Ticket In Jefferson (1914, July 13). The Fairmount News. p. 2.
2 Map of Grant County, Indiana (1903). W.B. Westlake [Madison]. Map.
3 Neal, W. (1861-1869). Map of Grant County, Indiana. Middleton, Strobridge, & Company. Web. Retrieved December 11, 2025.
4 The History (1967, February 10). The Upland Courier. p. 4.
5 Parcel 27-09-22-200-009.000-011 (2025). Office of the Assessor. Grant County [Marion]. Web. Retrieved December 11, 2025.
6 Democratic Notice (1904, September 8). The Marion Leader-Tribune. p. 4.
7 Full Faculty For The Jefferson Township Schools Is Announced (1922, August 26). The Marion Leader-Tribune. p. 2.
