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Yesterday’s post about the hopeful restoration of the old Corinth schoolhouse sent me down a tangent I’d like to explore a little further. Various sources describe Corinth as Delaware County’s last brick schoolhouse¹; the county’s only surviving school from before 1878, bizarrely²; or “one of the few remaining structures of its kind³.” I’m sure those claims were made in good faith, but they simply aren’t true. More importantly, they overshadow the myriad surviving schoolhouses scattered across Delaware County. I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of those forgotten survivors. Even if they can’t be realistically restored like Corinth, they at least deserve some attention.

I’ve been infatuated with one- and two-room schools since I was a kid. When I was twelve, my grandma, mom, and I set out to track down as many Delaware County schoolhouses as we could find. We discovered about twenty of them- schoolhouses are everywhere! In 2014, I decided to revisit the project and finally complete it myself. Since then, I’ve dedicated more than a decade to researching, photographing, and studying old rural schools across East-Central Indiana. If anyone can claim to be an expert on the byzantine topic of the surviving rural schoolhouses in this part of the Hoosier state, it’s probably me.

I recognize that not everyone has the inclination, patience, or wherewithal to spend years studying one-room schoolhouses. I get it. I do the hard work so you don’t have to! Unfortunately, when the caretakers of Delaware County’s best-preserved rural schoolhouse and the local “news outlets press release vehicles⁴” begin to repeat inaccurate false claims as fact, it turns into a real problem. Their statements may sound harmless, but they erase dozens of other surviving schools and flatten a much richer story.

Corinth absolutely deserves preservation and celebration, but the rest of Delaware County’s surviving rural schools deserve some attention as well. Their stories matter too.

Take this wall, for example. It’s all that remains of Harrison Township’s District 9 school, better known as Jaybird⁵ or Mount Olive⁶. The schoolhouse was built in 1873⁷ and operated until 1924, when its students were consolidated into a larger building four miles northwest⁸. Aerial photos show the building had already lost its roof by 1956. Ten years later, it had deteriorated into a ruin⁹. The remaining rear wall was stabilized sometime in the early 1970s¹⁰, but even that fragment has declined rapidly over the past decade. How many people even know this place exists? More unsettling, how many people will remember it once the last bricks finally collapse into the weeds? That’s why accuracy matters. When Corinth is mistakenly described as the county’s last surviving rural schoolhouse, ruins like Jaybird quietly disappear from public memory altogether. 

As I mentioned yesterday, Corinth isn’t merely not the only surviving rural schoolhouse in Delaware County; it isn’t even the only one left in Monroe Township! Not that far away, on County Road 200-East, is the old Lenox school, which served students in District 6. The building dates to about 1850¹¹, when it was erected on the farm of John Lenox¹². Beyond its sheer age, the school carries an important distinction: it was the first in Monroe Township to close, which happened in 1902¹³. The structure was converted into a home, but its origins remain architecturally obvious. Unfortunately, that raises an uncomfortable but important question: what exactly makes Corinth more historically significant than an even older building like Lenox? Is it because Corinth more closely resembles its original appearance? Because it was used for reenactments? Because people organized around saving it? Those are fair reasons to celebrate Corinth, but they don’t erase the importance of the other surviving schools.

Up in Niles Township, the old Green Street schoolhouse has endured a long, slow collapse. The first school at the site was established on John Battreall’s land in 1840¹⁴, but it was destroyed during a violent Fourth of July windstorm in 1871¹⁵. A replacement rose the same year and continued serving the students of District 1 until 1917, when consolidation sent them to Dunkirk¹⁶. Fortunately, Green Street survived for decades by taking on a new purpose as a barn. Time finally caught up with it recently, though: at some point between 2016 and 2021, part of the western gable gave way. In 2025, most of the remaining structure followed. What’s left today is heartbreaking, but I’m grateful I documented it. As the mythology surrounding Corinth continues to frame that building as the county’s lone surviving relic, schools like Green Street risk being forgotten altogether, as if they never existed in the first place.

At least Hamilton Township has one schoolhouse that received official recognition. The old Williamson school, which briefly served District 4, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places for more than forty years! Although the building retained the familiar Williamson name from an earlier school nearby, the extant structure was actually built on Thomas McCulloch’s land in 1897. Just two years after it opened, an early wave of consolidation sent its students to Royerton¹⁷. Eventually converted into a home¹⁸, the old school still carries clues to its original identity. It rises a story and a half tall, with an entrance beneath a squat bell tower. The building remained historically significant enough to earn National Register status, but you’d hardly know Williamson exists if you only listened to the modern narrative surrounding Corinth. 

These are only a handful of examples from Delaware County’s fifty-one surviving schoolhouses and schoolhouse remains. I want to end with one more, though. As it turns out, Corinth isn’t just not the county’s only surviving rural schoolhouse: it isn’t even the only one currently being renovated for civic duty! Back in Niles Township, restoration work is also underway at District 3, better known as the Wingate¹⁹ or Oak Grove²⁰ schoolhouse. The Italianate building was completed in 1889²¹ and remained active until a sweeping consolidation effort closed it and five other schools, including Green Street, in 1916²². More than a century later, Oak Grove remains township property. In fact, it was still being used as a polling place as recently as 2004²³. I learned about the restoration project twenty years later, and I’m glad that another one of Delaware County’s surviving rural schools is receiving attention instead of being left to collapse.

That’s ultimately why I felt compelled to write this post. My point isn’t to tear down the Corinth restoration effort or nitpick people’s writing. I’m thrilled Corinth is being preserved! Delaware County is lucky that one of its old schoolhouses survived so intact and that people care enough to save it. Hopefully, Corinth again becomes a powerful teaching tool, a community landmark, and a tangible connection to a different era. Still, it’s not Delaware County’s “last” schoolhouse. It is the best preserved, sure, but still one survivor among dozens. Some still stand proudly with their architectural details intact. Others have been altered into homes so thoroughly that only a second glance betrays their origins. A few survive only as collapsing ruins hidden behind trees and brush. Together, though, they tell a bigger story about rural education, consolidation, changing populations, and the evolution of the county’s countryside over the course of nearly two centuries.

We should celebrate Corinth, donate to the restoration, and visit it once it opens. We should also remember the Lenox school quietly standing in Monroe Township, the crumbling remains of Jaybird disappearing into the trees, the battered shell of Green Street, the nationally recognized Williamson school, and the ongoing work at Oak Grove. They matter too, as do all the rest. Delaware County’s educational history was never confined to a single building, and preserving that history means recognizing the entire landscape, not just its most famous survivor. 

Sources Cited
1 Rea, T. (2026, May 20). The push to save Delaware County’s last brick schoolhouse. The Muncie Star Press. Web. Retrieved May 20, 2026.
2 Corinth School (n.d.). Delaware County Retired Teachers Association [Muncie]. Web. Retrieved May 19, 2026. 
3 About One Room Schoolhouse No. 3 (n.d.). One Room Schoolhouse No 3 [Muncie]. Web. Retrieved May 20, 2026.
4 Cooper, C. (2026, April 22). New Nonprofit Formed to Preserve Historic 1875 One-Room Schoolhouse in Muncie, Indiana. The Muncie Journal. Web. Retrieved May 19, 2026. 
5 Harris, B. (1995, July 23). A celebration of faith. The Muncie Star. p. B1.
6 Mt. Olive Community Church. (n.d.). The History and Heritage of Mt Olive Church. Mt Olive Community Church. Web. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
7 (See footnote 5).
8 Delaware County Public Schools. (1923). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1923-1924. Muncie, IN. 
9 Album of yesteryear. (1997, June, 22). The Muncie Star Press. p. 3B.
10 Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. book, Kingman Brothers.
11 Delaware County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 1511200013000. Delaware County, Indiana Assessor. map, Muncie, IN.
12 Kingman, A.L. (1874). Map of Delaware County, Indiana : from recent & original surveys, made expressly for this map, drawn, compiled and published by A.L. Kingman and assistants. map, Chicago, IL; A.L. Kingman.
13 Kemper, G. W. H. (1908). Education in Delaware County. In A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1. book, Lewis Publishing Company.
14 Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. book, Kingman Brothers.
15 Shirk, O. (1947, January 25). The Green Street School. The Muncie Morning Star. p. 5.
16 Niles Township Schools May Not Open This Term. (1917, September 7). The Muncie Morning Star. p. 17. 
17 (See footnote 13).
18 National Register of Historic Places. (1984, December 27). Hamilton Township Schoolhouse No. 4. National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination Form. United States Department of the Interior.
19 Spurgeon, W. (1994, March 1). Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 4.
20 Former Pupils at Oak Grove in 50th Reunion. (1952, September 9). The Muncie Star. p. 8.
21 Delaware County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 0427400014000. Delaware County, Indiana Assessor. map, Muncie, IN.
22 (See footnote 16). 
23 Wiseley, A. & Shideler, T. (March 10, 2024). Personal Communication.