Recently, a fellow fan posted photos of the old College Corner schoolhouse in a Facebook group we share. The images stopped me cold. College Corner had been a ruin for as long as I’ve known it, but the latest pictures showed just how far it’s slipped since my last visit a few years ago. Knowing its time is running out, I was determined to document it before the schoolhouse disappears for good.
The 1884 brick College Corner School was the first school in Madison County to hold rural graduation exercises1. It was a cutting-edge structure back then, but one-room schools were old hat by 1942. That year, Richland Township was home to four of them: teachers at College Corner, Moonville, Center, and Thornburg taught a total of 149 students2. It wasn’t enough to subsist.
Officials began planning a consolidated school in 1939, but nothing came of it at first3. Fortunately, a new, six-room College Corner school was completed in 19504. It was expanded in stages to serve grades one through eight until Richland and Union Townships joined forces to build a new high school, Highland, that absorbed grades seven and eight. The “new” College Corner Elementary joined Anderson Community Schools in 1971 and was shuttered thirty-four years later.
The 1884 iteration of the College Corner schoolhouse sits in the woods at the southeastern corner of College Corner Road -County Road 400-North- and North County Road 100-East, just across from its replacement. The first time I noticed it, the old schoolhouse still felt remarkably whole. Today, that illusion is gone. The roof has collapsed, the gable has nearly vanished, and entire sections of brick wall have caved in.
No Trespassing signs line 100-East, but they’ve done little to slow the steady work of time and vandals, both of which continue to gnaw away at one of Madison County’s increasingly fragile pieces of history.
Sources Cited
1 Forkner, J. (1914). History of Madison County Indiana. A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People and Its Principal Interests, Volume 1. book, The Lewis Publishing Company. Chicago, IL.
2 Rural School Enrollment is Almost 5,000 (1942, October 2). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1.
3 Bond Issue for New School was Given Approval (1939, March 11). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1.
4 Work Is Advanced At College Corner (1958, April 23). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. pp. 1, 6.
I went to the first grade at an elementary school on the other side of Anderson in 1958/59. Fall Creek Elementary School, located at 600s and S Rangeline Road., near Emporia. The building was very similar to the second iteration of College Corner and probably built around the same time. That school building is now owned by “American Elevator”, a grain company. We moved closer to town on 53rd street. Lived in what was a new development, called Devonshire, which was envisioned as a growing development of hundreds of homes , but never grew past 2 dozen. homes I attended the now defunct and destroyed Franklin Elementary School from second grade to sixth grade, which was at 38th and Scatterfield where the Walgreens is today.
Had no idea American Elevator was a grain company. I thought it was literally an elevator company! They put some money into Fall Creek Heights and it looks great.
Wish I could find a photo of Franklin to see what it looked like.
There was a Franklin photo on FB a few years back. It looked a lot like the Old Roosevelt Elementary School
Glad you had another, possibly final, time to capture this ruin. Sometimes we get complacent about places like this, but I’ve seen them vanish due to various reasons.
For example, in 2021 I found a decayed homestead in the woods next to a natural area.
https://urbanadventureleague.wordpress.com/2021/04/01/gravitating-towards-grant-butte-a-ramble-17-march-2021/
Then a year later I went back to visit, expecting to see the same collection of decayed buildings and burnt-out mid-century automotive husks. Instead, everything was completely gone. It made me doubt my own sanity for a sec, “Did I imagine this?”
https://urbanadventureleague.wordpress.com/2022/05/02/a-coffee-outside-and-post-ramble-plus-vanishing-places-23-april-2022/
“A state of accelerated entropy.” I love that! And it must have been a huge shock to see everything gone. Do you still think it was demolished because the land was sold? Seems plausible to me.
I do think that it got cleared due to selling of the land. I need to go back and see what it looks like now.
I found 1 photo here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1231669691034498/search/?q=Franklin%20Elementary%20School
Here is another https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2299536596843789&set=p.2299536596843789&type=3
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202302525588678&set=p.10202302525588678&type=3
Thanks! Those are great. It does look like old Roosevelt, and also sort of like Washington and North Anderson.
It does. My five years there were mostly good ones with good memories. Now more th 55 years in my past.