Read time: 10 min.

After it closed, Muncie’s old Harrison Elementary spent nearly half a century as the educational center of Full Gospel Temple. Now, that chapter is coming to a close: with a brand-new youth center in place, the church is preparing to sell the school so it can be converted into apartments¹! Last Saturday, its doors opened one last time to host a massive rummage sale. I stopped by with the knowledge that it might be a last chance to see inside.

I’ve written a little about Harrison before. The school was built just south of downtown Muncie in 1909, at the corner of West Seventh and Liberty Streets. Designed by famed local architect Cuno Kibele, the $40,000², two-story structure replaced a frame L-shaped school that served grades one through five³. Upon completion, the second Harrison School was big enough to relieve congestion from others and accommodate kids in first through eighth grades⁴. 

Harrison lasted sixty-two years before officials cited $130,000 in annual savings and closed it in 1971⁵. The building’s 275 students were dispersed to five other schools including Garfield, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt⁶. Of those, only parts of Garfield remain standing today. 

Fortunately, Harrison didn’t remain empty for long: the same year the school was shuttered, Ivy Tech Community College moved in and spent $14,000 to remodel it⁷. The college stayed at Harrison until 1978, when it relocated to a campus south of Muncie on Cowan Road⁸. Not long after, Full Gospel Temple stepped in and bought the old school for $20,000. The purchase gave the seventy-year-old structure a third life.

I first visited Harrison back in 2019. I’d cold-called the pastor at Full Gospel Temple and, against all odds, was invited in to explore. I’m not a professional photographer, though, and all I had was a little point-and-shoot camera with me. Between that and the building’s dim lighting, my pictures didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. When I heard about the rummage sale seven years later, though, I couldn’t wait to go back. This time, I brought my iPhone along. 

My mom came too. Just as her career as an English teacher was getting started, Mom interviewed at the 1923 Montpelier High School. The building’s oldest wing still carried its original charm- particularly with tall transoms perched above each classroom door. Mom loved them. Harrison had those windows too, I recalled, and that’s why I invited Mom along. Seeing them again felt like a bridge between her story and mine. I’m happy when that happens!

Mom and I rolled up to Harrison just after the sale started. The parking lot was packed! Although I’d entered the building from one of its impressive stairs seven years ago, Saturday’s ingress was provided by a modern addition with a ramp that led down to the basement. There, we found ourselves in a modern-looking room that the church used for dinners and functions. 

We wandered from north to south though the basement to a large youth room with a tiny stage. I recalled another stair nearby that led to a brick sub-basement, but that part of Harrison didn’t seem to be accessible during the sale. As we rambled, though, Mom and I found the building’s south stairwell. It was roped off with caution tape, and one look told me why: water damage was less than insignificant. The slow, creeping deterioration was sad to see. 

From Harrison’s subterranean floor, Mom and I climbed the north stair back up to the first floor and stepped into a space that was largely intact. Classrooms and offices stretched out in all directions from the wide central hall. Some were wide and open, but others stood tucked into corners or squeezed into narrow footprints.

Chalkboards still lined the walls in most of the rooms Mom and I visited. Tall doors still stood with their fantastic transoms overhead. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be built-in furniture- cabinets, drawers, and other little details that spoke to how Harrison once functioned. None of the classrooms I ever spent time in as a Millennial featured any of those details.

Most of my readership is probably familiar with classrooms like Harrison’s. That said, I’m not: the schools I attended were built in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Inside, classrooms were large, modern, and boring! My high school was built in 1929, but it’d been remodeled extensively in the early nineties. Little, if any of its historic interior remained. I missed out on places like Harrison.

Because of that, glimpses into the past are big parts of why I love chance visits into these historic places. Despite the years and reuse, much of Harrison’s interior retained a lot of character as the type of old-fashioned school I was too young to really experience.

Nowhere was my nostalgic impression more apparent than the building’s original front entrance, which faces west towards Liberty Street. I gathered that the the doors were no longer in regular use today, but I stepped around some barriers for a quick photo anyway. What a fantastic entryway. Just look at those windows!

Unfortunately, Harrison’s nearby south stair was off-limits on the first floor just as it had been down in the basement. I’m almost certain that wasn’t the case when I visited seven years ago! Some parts of the building indicated that Harrison wasn’t just aging. Instead, big chunks of its history had been closed off. That said, I’m hopeful that new ownership might restore such a major feature as this prominent staircase. They’ll definitely have their work cut out for them.

Mom and I circled back to the north stairway and climbed up to Harrison’s second story. Like the first floor and the basement, many of the old classrooms and halls were crammed with stuff to buy: I counted five old CRT TV’s, three overhead projectors, two pool tables, two foozball tables, two basketball goals, and a $300 drum set among the rest of the spoils. Fortunately, this corner classroom with its tall windows was mostly devoid of things on offer.

At the top of the south stair, the damage Mom and I noticed seemed to converge at an unmistakable source of all the debris. The area stopped me for a moment: I hadn’t expected this kind of destruction, especially after only a few years since I’d last been inside. It made sense that Full Gospel Temple was selling the place off.

Elsewhere, mom and I toured the clusters of classrooms situated around another wide, central hall. To the detriment of my photos, though, it was absolutely crammed with goods to buy. This view faces northwest and looks towards an expansive room I was told had once been a cafeteria. On the way out, though, Mom and I encountered a pair of former students who said Harrison didn’t feature a place to eat during their time there. Who knows what it once was.

Regardless of the provenance of those long quarters, my favorite feature was this tall cabinet that extends into the drop ceiling. Whether or not the room it climbed past was ever a cafeteria, this towering cupboard wasn’t home to plates and bowls. Rather, it opens up to reveal a ladder that provides access to Harrison’s roof! If you didn’t think I tried to open it the minute I saw it, I guess you don’t know me very well.

Here’s how Harrison’s stair cabinet looked headed into the ceiling. Seeing it up close again really cool! Unfortunately, the door was locked. I’d have climbed aboard if it hadn’t been.

Some of Harrison’s halls ended in classrooms with straight-ahead entrances, while others -two per floor- featured angled entryways. Here’s how two corner classrooms opened up into a central corridor. I took most of my photos from angles that didn’t feature any other visitors, but the old school was teeming with people when Mom and I were there.

Before long, it was time to head back down the north stair. We found ourselves in the basement again, checking out with a five-dollar bag of treasures. From the exit, Mom and I followed the modern ramp up toward the parking lot. Just like that, our visit to Harrison came to a close.

Just as soon as we made our way to the parking lot, Mom struck up a conversation with those two former Harrison students, both now in their seventies. They pointed out that a long second-floor room -roped off during the rummage sale- had once been a pair of classes for art and music. Together, those spaces fed out to an old fire escape. It wasn’t as thrilling as a tube slide, but it had its own charm, especially with only half of it painted yellow. I guess that’s a reminder of how safety standards have changed over the years.

It might be obsolete now, but I can’t help but hope that old fire escape survives whatever comes next. It’s such a quirky detail, but pieces like that are some of what give a building its memory. Harrison Elementary School is a true landmark, and I’m genuinely excited to see what its fourth life becomes as long as it can keep some of its story intact.

Every new chapter brings fresh energy to old places like this, but that verve can also chip away at the little things that made a place like Harrison special in the first place. We’ll see what it’s renovation brings, but I’m glad to have gotten the opportunity to venture through the old structure one more time.

Sources Cited
1 Penticuff, D. (2024, August 9). Effort to develop housing for homeless amilies in Muncie gains city county support. The Muncie Star Press. Web. Retrieved May 2, 2026. 
2 The Excellent Public Schools In This City (1909, November 24). The Muncie Press. p. 8
3 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana (1902). Sanborn Map Company. Web. Retrieved January 12, 2026. 
4 (See footnote 2).
5 Loy, B. (1971, June 11). Closing of Harrison School Is Ordered. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 13. 
6 (See footnote 5). 
7 Ivy Tech Plans Move in October (1971, September 30). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1. 
8 Region’s Ivy Tech Board Re-Elects Officers, Establishes Parking Fees (1978, June 21). The Muncie Star. p. 11.