Read time: 8 min.

Not that long ago, I wrote about exploring Gas City’s magnificent 1924 gym with my friend Brett Yoder of Hoosier Gym Journey. Reaching it meant walking through the connected old high school, and I realized that it was every bit as fascinating as the gym. Converted into senior apartments twenty-two years ago, an astonishing number of its original architectural details have been preserved! The old school deserved a closer look.

Gas City was founded as Harrisburg in 1867. When the Indiana Gas Boom transformed the community two decades later, residents renamed the town after the industry that fueled its growth¹. At first, students attended six one-room schools scattered across Mill Township before a three-room brick school opened in 1874, followed by a graded school three years later². 

High school courses were taught all over the place during Gas City’s salad days³. Fortunately, students were finally given a purpose-built home when they moved into the new Gas City High School⁴. Designed by John Waldron, the Richardson Romanesque building immediately became one of Gas City’s architectural showpieces, with an asymmetrical façade that combined three distinct sections anchored by a soaring central tower. Although the tower’s upper stages have disappeared, the massive rusticated entrance beneath it has survived as students knew it in the 1890s⁵. Framed by Doric columns, it became the backdrop for generations of senior class photographs⁶. 

By the early 1920s, Gas City High School was already bursting at the seams. Construction began in 1923 on a major addition that included the gym Brett and I explored along with several new classrooms up above. Still, even that expansion proved temporary: following graduation of the Class of 1948, Mill Township opened a new consolidated high school as part of the newly organized Mississinewa Joint School system, a reorganization that also absorbed nearby Jonesboro High School⁷. The old building continued serving younger students as East Ward School and later East Elementary until a new elementary school replaced it, leaving the historic school without much of a purpose⁸. 

Depending on how you look at it, the old Gas City High School got a second, third, fourth, or fifth lease on life in 2004 when the 30,000-square-foot building was transformed into Gas City School Apartments. When Brett and I visited, one of the first surprises came before we even set foot inside. During its years as a school, the building’s main entrance faced north. Today, residents enter from the south. Brett and I found ourselves stumped by the locked door until a friendly tenant shared the access code.

A pair of heavy double doors led us downstairs into the basement. During the school’s heyday, the area bustled with science laboratories, restrooms, and a central rotunda used as a cafeteria. That said, its conversion to apartments inevitably altered the space -a leasing office takes up the central island now- but enough survives to imagine students streaming through the halls between classes.

Simple, twin staircases rose from the basement to another that led to the building’s raised first floor. Climbing them felt almost ceremonial. Sunlight poured into the entrance hall, convincing my phone camera to tell me to clean the lens. It also highlighted woodwork, trim, and proportions that modern schools never seem to attempt. Before we’d even reached the first floor, I already understood why preservationists had fought to save the building.

From there, we descended once again to the basement for the reason we’d come: Gas City’s 1924 gymnasium. I’ve already given it the spotlight in a separate post, but it’s worth another look. During the school’s heyday, parents and other spectators filled the permanent bleachers and balcony along one side of the court, while students packed portable bleachers set up right on the stage. It must have made for an incredible atmosphere on game nights.

Even with the original hardwood court replaced by tile, the gym remains an impressive space. After the school became apartments, it served for a time as an exercise room for residents. Today, it’s quiet and empty, but thankfully still secure. The former home of the Gas City Tigers is an extraordinary survivor from an era when high school gymnasiums were built to inspire as much as they were to host athletic events. 

Outside the gym’s main entrance, another staircase beckoned. It led to the classrooms above, the gym’s balcony, and the top floor of the corridor connecting the 1923 addition to the original school. What else can I say? They’re stairs.

Back in the old school, Brett and I climbed back up to try find our host and let her know we’d finished exploring. The broad rotunda was grand, with dark beadboard wainscoting, glowing pendant lights, and polished oak floors⁹. Straight ahead, the massive interior opening framed the arched transom over the entrance, where colorful panes of stained glass still brightened the space more than a century after students first walked through those doors. 

Originally, classrooms and cloakrooms surrounded the first floor’s octagonal rotunda. They’re apartments now, so we didn’t have the opportunity to peek inside. Even so, the hallways remain full of reminders of the building’s former life. Above many of the doorways, the original transom windows survive complete with gold-painted lettering identifying the teachers who once taught there. One reads, “Edith Roberts – 3rd Grade,” making it easy to picture generations of children lining up outside her classroom. It’s a cool detail, especially since Ms. Roberts actually taught third grade in the building¹⁰, and one that bridges the building’s past and present.

Rather than call it a day, Brett and I figured we’d make the most of the opportunity and continue our climb. It’s not every day you get free rein to wander through a beautifully preserved nineteenth-century school, after all! The twin staircases leading to the second floor were every bit as impressive as those below. Looking back toward the entrance, the view was spectacular. The broad wooden banisters framed the rotunda like something from a grand hotel.

The hexagonal second floor follows much the same layout as the first, with more rooms arranged around a central hall. Once again, the apartment conversion preserved the original transom windows above each doorway, complete with painted room names. Seeing “Home Economics Room” still arched across the glass was a fun surprise! The room serves as someone’s apartment today, but that simple inscription makes it easy to imagine generations of students learning to cook, sew, and manage a household long before the space became a home itself.

Finally, we reached the second-story entrance to the gym. There, the building’s two lives met head-on: the polished oak floor gave way to carpet, and the stately school hallway branched into a series of quieter passages leading to the apartments constructed above the gymnasium. Out of respect for the residents’ privacy, Brett and I stopped at the threshold. Some parts of the building are still meant to be lived in rather than toured.

Eventually, it was time to head home. We retraced our steps through the old school and descended to the south entrance, the route residents now use every day. Unlike the grand north entrance, these stairs were built for function rather than ceremony. Even so, the century-old treads felt reassuringly solid beneath our feet, flanked by the same wainscoting that has weathered generations of students and tenants. It was a quiet but fitting end to our visit.

The old Gas City High School is an incredible building, full stop. From its imposing façade to its grand staircases, stained-glass transom, and classrooms that still bear their original names, it’s one of the finest examples of adaptive reuse I’ve ever encountered. Rather than being demolished after serving generations of students, the school found a second life as apartments while retaining the architectural details that make it special. More than 130 years after it opened, the building remains a landmark that honors Gas City’s past while continuing to serve its community. It’s a reminder that the best way to preserve history is often to keep it alive.

Sources Cited
1 Gas City History (n.d.). City of Gas City, Indiana [Gas City]. Web. Retrieved July 20, 2025. 
2 (See footnote 1).
3 The Epoch (1907). Gas City High School [Gas City]. Yearbook. 
4 (See footnote 1).
5. Alexander, G. (2020, April 1). Gas City HS pre 1923. Old Schools of Indiana. Flickr. Web. Retrieved July 20, 2025. 
6 National Register of Historic Places, Gas City High School, Gas City, Grant County, Indiana, National Register #03001316.
7 (See footnote 6). 
8 Gas City’s 50th Anniversary Jubilee and Homecoming 1892 – 1942 (1942, September 23, 24, 25). The Gas City Journal. 1942. 
9 (See footnote 6). 
10 Gas City Faculty For ’46-’47 Listed (1946, August 24). The Marion Leader-Tribune. p. 3.