I was bumbling through Union County looking for its old infirmary when I spotted an old schoolhouse rising in the distance. I haven’t been able to find out much about it, but the building’s still intriguing for a variety of reasons.
A schoolhouse has stood at what’s now North Stout Road in rural Union County since at least 1867, when it was on S.J. Kellner’s land1. By 1884, the school served Harrison Township’s District 4 on land owned by John Kitchel2. The date the extant structure was built wasn’t clear from its obscured lintel, but I bet it was in the 1890s given its T-shaped floorplan. I assume the schoolhouse closed no later than 1923, when a consolidated institution opened nearby in Kitchel3. Unfortunately, that’s about all I know and can infer.
Old schoolhouses are cool on their own, but this one stands out. For starters, it’s got an unusual recessed arch surrounding its front door. Secondly, I’ve long heard of abandoned schoolhouses used for agricultural storage, but this one was absolutely stuffed with hay! It’s kind of hard to see in the pictures, but there’s even some farming apparatus jutting out of its southwestern window. It was fun to finally see an example of an old school in this use case.
The third thing I noticed was that someone took the time to drive out to the middle of nowhere and tag the front of the building. Graffitied schoolhouses are pretty uncommon! I’m only aware of one other, which once stood in Randolph County just east of Stone Station. It’s been demolished but can still be seen thanks to the roving eye of Google Street View.
Like so many things scattered across Indiana’s back roads, the old District 4 schoolhouse isn’t famous and its history is only partly known. Standing there in the middle of a Union County field, though, the half-school, half-barn, and partial canvas is still doing what old buildings do best: reminding infrequent passersby that even the most ordinary places carry traces of the lives that once filled them.
Sources Cited
1 Warner, A. (1867). Map of Fayette Union and Franklin Cos. (1867). C.O. Titus [Philadelphia]. Map.
2 1884 Atlas of Union County Indiana (1884). J.H. Beers & Co. [Knightstown]. Map.
3 Kennedy, R. (1981, May 29). School’s out at Kitchel – for good. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 3.
