Read time: 5 min.

Morgan County’s landmark Eminence High School was built in 1931. Ninety-five years later, the structure forty minutes southwest of Indianapolis is scheduled to be demolished. If you’re a fan of old schools like I am, the time to go see it is now.

Eminence was laid out in 1855¹, and a post office was established two years later². There’s not much to the place today aside from a church, a gas station, an old Odd Fellows’ Hall, and a lot of community pride. Crown Center has its old church and Little Point has a garage and drop yard, but Eminence is the only place in Adams Township where there’s really a there there. The school is the area’s most prominent landmark.

Designed by architects Henkel & Hanson³, the old Eminence School was completed in 1931. The Connersville architectural firm, founded only three years earlier⁴, was responsible for other Indiana landmarks including St. Philip Neri Parish School in Indianapolis, Thomas Marshall School in North Manchester, the old Baugo Township gym in Osceola, and St. Therese School in Indy’s Little Flower neighborhood.

For more than two decades, the 1931 school stood alone. Then came a new gym in 1952, the first of several additions that gradually transformed the building into the sprawling complex that exists today. That gym is called the Eel Tank, which might be the best high-school gym name I’ve ever heard! Eminence is the only Hoosier high school with the Eels as its mascot, and a sign over the gym entrance warns visitors to “PREPARE TO BE EELECTRIFIED.” I love it! Still, I can’t help but worry how well an eel’s lack of appendages lends itself to effective ball movement in a modern half-court motion-based offense.

Regardless, the Eminence Eels did alright in the sectionals and regionals, particularly in 1962, and the school kept growing. A seven-room addition south of the 1931 building was completed in 1974⁵. Still, the tiny district still flirted with consolidation in the late 1980s, when officials considered merging with nearby Monrovia or Cloverdale⁶. That never happened, and Eminence eventually expanded again: a $4.8 million project in 2000⁷ added sixteen classrooms, two libraries, an auxiliary gym, and a cafeteria. 

At the time, the original 1931 building still housed elementary and high-school students. Once the expansion was finished, officials expected the old portion to serve as a middle school⁸. Years later, the additions gave Eminence enough space to abandon its oldest building when serious structural problems emerged. During a July 30 board meeting, officials heard troubling findings from construction and engineering firm Performance Services. Water had apparently worked its way behind the brick facade and compromised the building’s steel supports.

Experts determined that the old section could no longer safely accommodate students and faculty during the school year because of the potential for further deterioration⁹. From everything I’ve read, it sounds like the school board and community hoped the historic building could be saved¹⁰. Unfortunately, the outlook wasn’t good: on July 16, the board voted to approve a contract to demolish the old landmark¹¹.

For now, the Eminence Community School Board is advertising a “One Last Look” for Sunday, September 27. “Join us for one last look at the 1931 Eminence School Building,” the district says in a flyer. “Walk the grounds, share your memories, and help us say goodbye to a building that has meant so much to generations of Eels.”

The deteriorating building won’t be open for tours, which is annoying, but understandable given that a recent Google Street View image shows it fenced off with tarp covering part of the facade. Still, the event offers former students, teachers, neighbors, and curious schoolhouse nerds like me one final opportunity to gather around a landmark that’s defined Eminence for nearly a century. If you’re an Eel -current, former, or zoological- I’d suggest being there. As for me, I don’t have any connection to the Eminence School. Until Brett Yoder wrote about it for Hoosier Gym Journey, I coudn’t remember hearing about the place!

Still, I’m thinking seriously about making the trip. I’ve already knocked out all the AT&T Long Lines towers in that part of the state, but surely there’s a county home, old schoolhouse, or something else nearby I haven’t visited yet. That’s enough justification for a day trip. More importantly, there won’t be another chance to photograph the 1931 Eminence School once it’s gone. You don’t have to have gone to school somewhere to recognize what it means to a community- or to realize that ninety-five years of familiarity can disappear pretty quickly once the excavators arrive.

Sources Cited
1 Blanchard, C. (1884). Counties of Morgan, Monroe and Brown, Indiana: Historical and Biographical. F.A. Battey & Company [Chicago]. Book.
2 “Morgan County”. Jim Forte Postal History. Web. Retrieved September 9, 2026.
3 Survey Number 09-ADA-00032(2023). IHSSI (County Survey). SHAARD. Indiana Department of Natural Resources [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved September 9, 2026. 
4 National Register of Historic Places, Baugo Township Gymnasium, Baugo Township, Elkhart County, Indiana, National Register #16000903.
5 82 Expected to Bid on Eminence School Addition (1973, December 10). The Martinsville Daily Reporter. p. 1. 
6 Russell, J. (1989, January 12). Eminence: One for all. The Indianapolis News. p. 24. 
7 Rhoades, K. (2000, December 8). Eminence breaks ground for new school addition. The Martinsville Reporter-Times. p. 1. 
8 (See footnote. 7). 
9 Eminence Community School Corporation Minutes of Regular Board Meeting (2025, July 30). Eminence Community School Corporation [Eminence]. Web. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
10 (See footnote 9). 
11 Eminence Community School Corporation Minutes of Regular Board Meeting (2026, July 16). Eminence Community School Corporation [Eminence]. Web. Retrieved September 10, 2026.