Some buildings don’t really disappear. Instead, they just learn how to hold new secrets. Pendleton’s elementary school campus is one of those places. At a glance, it’s a tidy, familiar part of town, reshaped over decades to meet modern needs. If you look a little closer, though, the outline of something older begins to emerge: the roof of the old Pendleton High School gym.
It’d be a fun rabbit hole to fall down, sorting out the history of education in Pendleton. Maybe I’ll do it one day! Without a deep dive, though, the scholarly campus at the southeastern corner of East and High Streets once consisted of Pendleton’s old 1896 high school1, a two-story annex built in 19132, and a second annex built in 19283. All of it stood as late as 1983.
Just south, but on its own, sat the old Pendleton gym. A WPA project, the 100×120-foot structure featured a full-size playing floor4. It was built with wood from Pendleton’s Collingwood Brothers, cement from Pendleton Feed and Fuel, and structural steel from Muncie’s Indiana Bridge Company5.
The Pendleton gym opened about a year before its neighbor to the south, a three-story WPA high school. On opening night, 2,000 fans packed the stands at the gym. Every seat was filled, as was the standing room at each baseline! Fortunately, Ed Johnson’s Pendleton Irish defeated the Lapel Bulldogs by a score of 24 to 206.
As I mentioned, changes came to the campus in 1983, when the school board set up a $5 million expansion and renovation of what was then known as Pendleton Middle School. The two-year effort sought to build an addition that wrapped around the old gym and connected with the 1937 school, usurped by the current high school in 1969. The single-story addition housed administration offices, a library, three math classes, three science rooms, and a new gym. Beyond that, it’d connect Pendleton’s entire middle school facilities7.
As it turns out, the project gutted the old gym. All but its walls were removed while new lockers, showers, and bleachers for 800 spectators were put back in8. The front of the new building was accented by a brick archway built from material retained from the 1896 high school9.
In the end, what survives of Pendleton’s old gym is less a building than a memory given shape. Its shell still stands, but everything inside has been reimagined for newer needs. Like so many school buildings across Indiana, the gym wasn’t erased so much as absorbed, as its bones were preserved beneath layers of change. If you know where to look, the story is still there!
Sources Cited
1 Chairs for Two (895, April 19). The Anderson Weekly Herald. p. 8.
|2 Will Occupy Annex Monday (1913, November 9). The Anderson Herald. p. 8.
3 2005 Christmas Ornament (2005, November 2). The Pendleton Times-Post. p. 3.
4 Pendleton Gymnasium Construction Started (1936, March 28). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 6.
5 (See footnote 4).
6 2,000 Fans See Pendleton Defeat Lapel In Dedication (1937, January 15). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 12.
7 Board accepts bond bid for new school (1983, August 26). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 10.
8 (See footnote 7).
9 PMS project visualized (1983, June 29). The Pendleton Times. p. 1.
Kudos to Pendleton for its redevelopment effort. So many other municipalities and school districts would’ve simply leveled everything and started from scratch.
With your interest in malls, you might enjoy this article on the design of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT0xBbHl5Q4
While I never was a big shopper, I find I somewhat miss browsing the larger malls. Going into one was somewhat like opening the Sears Christmas catalog.
Thanks for sending! I’ll check it out.