After more than a decade of research, I’m used to finding obscure facts and figures about almost all of Delaware County’s old schools. Strangely, though, Center Township’s Eugene Field school has resisted my efforts! I’ve spent years gathering scattered newspaper articles, old photographs, directories, and long-dormant memories, and I’ve finally pieced together much of Eugene Field’s story. The tale starts with an even older schoolhouse on the same site and concludes, so far, with a plastics factory.
A school has stood along the Muncie-Middletown Pike1 -now Hoyt Avenue- since the early 1880s, when it was known as Hurst2. Earlier, a schoolhouse serving District 12 was nearby, about where Midwest Metal Products stands today3. Unfortunately, pinning down exactly when the Hurst school was built isn’t easy: an article from 1883 about its dedication said the building had been erected the previous year and that G.N. McLaughlin was the teacher4.
That information sort of tracks, aside from the fact that McLaughlin was known to be teaching at Hurst as early as 18815! Ultimately, it’s safe to say the schoolhouse dated to the early 1880s. Clearing up the origin of the school’s name is thankfully easier based on some deductive reasoning: I’m sure it came from the old Hurst Mill, which stood nearby at Cornbread Road and Buck Creek during the 1870s6. At any rate, the schoolhouse served students from Center Township’s District 10 by 18877. It was enlarged fourteen years later8.
I’ve seen mentions of the Hurst schoolhouse being called the Middletown Pike school since it sat on that road, but I can’t find them now that I’m looking. Beginning in 1919, though, countywide directories referred to the institution as Eugene Field9. The new name reflected a broader pattern among Center Township schools that honored poets and literary figures. Muncie’s city schools, meanwhile, often took their names from politicians like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Maine statesman James G. Blaine10.
Unfortunately, a new moniker didn’t solve the old building’s problems. By the 1920s, the school again proved too small despite its earlier expansion. In 1925, C.E. Brandon11 built a $30,000 replacement that incorporated bricks from its predecessor12. Among its other facilities, the new Eugene Field featured four recitation rooms, a manual-training department, and space for domestic science studies13. A year after it opened, Principal Charles Lykins taught seventh and eighth grades at Eugene Field while Edna Carter handled fifth and sixth. Mildred Yingling taught third and fourth, while Dessie Russell Conn was responsible for the students in first and second grades14.
That arrangement reflected a different era of elementary education, a holdover from the rural one-room schoolhouses that Eugene Field replaced. Incredibly, Field actually became Center Township’s only school following a series of annexations starting the year it opened: Stevenson joined the city first, followed by Wilson and Riley after the 1928-29 school year15. The changes meant that Center Township’s 240 students, regardless of where they lived, were mostly sent to Eugene Field16.
My grandma was one of those kids in the early forties! By 1952, though, Field’s six classrooms were crammed with an alarming 350 students17! Officials had spent years discussing how to relieve the pressure: in 1947, the Center Township Trustee proposed expanding Eugene Field with a junior high and high school to serve the township’s older students18. That never happened. Instead, a $129,000 concrete-block addition added eight classrooms in 195219.
The new wing -a long, low building that connected to the building with a ramp- increased Eugene Field’s capacity to nearly 80020. All the extra room allowed Center Township students sent elsewhere to return to school in their own township21. Unfortunately, though, Center Township didn’t last much longer as an independent school system: in 1957, officials agreed to consolidate with Muncie22. The merger came two years later and included the brand-new Claypool Elementary, an eighteen-room building first intended to help with Field’s overcrowded conditions23.
In its final year as a Center Township school, Eugene Field was home to 713 students. Twenty-three teachers, including instructors in music, art, and remedial reading, guided them through first through sixth grades, along with Principal Lloyd Clark, a nurse, and two custodians24. Field spent another fourteen years as a Muncie school before it was shuttered during a district-wide financial crunch. Officials were concerned that its facilities were substandard when compared to the newer Morrison-Mock25 and Grissom Elementaries26, the buildings that absorbed all of Field’s students in 1973.
A 1976 auction disposed of much of Eugene Field’s contents27 and left the building vacant and vulnerable to vandalism. A year later, though, Dick Kishel of fiberglass firm Art Forms submitted a $42,500 bid to buy the place. After a protracted process involving zoning issues and intervention from the Muncie mayor28, Kishel finally took possession. Today, Eugene Field is home to Arrowhead Plastic Engineering, a custom fiberglass manufacturer.
I wanted to get a sense of how the building was laid out when it was still a school, but reconstructing that arrangement more than fifty years after the last sixth-graders left wasn’t easy. From what I’ve been able to piece together, though, the front rooms on the first floor of the original building housed kindergarten through second grade during the 1960s and ’70s31, while the second floor appears to have been home to third- and fourth-grade classes32. Most of the top floor is offices now, but much of the rest of the structure has been opened up as factory space.
Although it’s been expanded and has been home to a manufacturing facility for longer than it was a school by now, Eugene Field retains much of its architectural heritage. Look closely on a drive past, as I did, and you’ll see original brown brick walls, limestone coping, casement windows, and patterned brickwork, even though the school’s original roofline and stone inscription panel were removed sometime in the past forty years30. Many windows in the building’s modern wing have been covered up, but its past isn’t hard to envision.
When it was a school, the 1952 addition was home to a large library that also served as a cafeteria. It stood at the end of the connecting ramp and featured two entrances33. When gym class was held indoors, the room’s tables were moved so kids could run relay races and square dance34! From there, fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms stood to the left, and rooms for second, third, and fourth grades were to the right35. A main entrance at the southwest led to an office suite.
It’s hard to imagine the interior of a factory once bustling with seven hundred kids and their teachers! Still, schools -and manufacturing sites, for that matter- are more than bricks, glass, and whatever purpose their rooms happen to serve. Stories from years ago mentioned the ice cream socials, gym class in the library, basketball practice in the hall, the gravel playground, the display case between the library doors, and the long hike out to the baseball diamond near the gravel quarry. Those memories are as much a part of the building as the work that goes on today.
A century after Eugene Field opened, people still walk through its doors every morning with somewhere to be and something to do- just as employees of Arrowhead. Its role has changed as the building adapted, but through all of it, the historic Eugene Field School never stopped serving a useful purpose.
Sources Cited
1 Griffing, B. N. (1887). Center Township. An atlas of Delaware County, Indiana. map, Philadelphia, PA; Griffing, Gordon, & Company.
2 There will be preaching (1880, March 29). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 4.
3 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.
4 Close of School and Dedication (1883, April 6). The Muncie Morning News. p. 2.
5 School Report (1881, February 10). The Muncie Morning News. p. 2.
6 A Paper Mill (1881, August 1). The Muncie Morning News. p. 1.
7 (See footnote 1).
8 The Insurance Is Adjusted (1901, December 5). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
9 Delaware County Public Schools. (1919). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1919-1920. Muncie, IN.
10 Album of Yesteryear (1989, July 2). The Muncie Star. p. 22.
11 Candidate For Trustee (1926, January 5). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 2.
12 Let Contract For New School (1925, April 22). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1. |
13 (See footnote 11).
14 Complete List of Teachers in Township Schools Announced (1926, September 10). The Muncie Star. p. 13.
15 Delaware County Public Schools. (1929). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1929-1930. Muncie, IN.
16 Township Only Has One School (1929, July 24). The Muncie Star. p. 14.
17 Tufford, C. (1952, September 20). Several Additions to Schools Increase Educational Facilities. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 14.
18 Enlargement of Field School Being Planned (1947, December 18). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
19 Let Contracts for Addition to Field School (1952, May 23). The Muncie Star. p. 26.
20 797 Enroll at Enlarged Eugene Field School (1953, September 16). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
21 Enrollment for Center Pupils Being Planned (1957, August 10). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 6.
22 Bump, D. (1957, December 10). School Merger Approved. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
23 William Glaser Construction Firm awarded Contract for New Center Township School (1957, December 13). The Muncie Star. p. 38.
24 Delaware County Public Schools. (1958). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1958-1959. Muncie, IN.
25 Smile, F. (1966, February 23). New School for Handicapped Opens Monday. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1. }26 Loy, B. (1973, January 22). Kids Flock to New Grissom And They Think It’s Great. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
27 Huge Auction (1976, July 10). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 14.
28 Old Field school property is sold (1977, April 6). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 17.
29 Arrowhead Plastic Engineering, Inc. – Company History. Arrowhead Plastic Engineering [Muncie]. Web. Retrieved August 7, 2026.
30 Survey Number 035-442-35015 (1985). IHSSI (County Survey). SHAARD. Indiana Department of Natural Resources [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved August 15, 2026.
31 Tinch-Mize, R. (2026, August 5). I went there from 1967 to 1973. From kindergarten to second grade, my classrooms were on the first floor in the old [Comment]. Facebook.
32 (See footnote 32).
33 Grice, B. (2026, August 5). Yes the large room at the back directly from the front was the library. There were long tables in rows and at lunch [Comment]. Facebook.
34 See footnote 33.
35 Stearns, K. (2026, July 29). I attended in the 60’s as well. I remember on the left side was the 5th and 6th grade classrooms. The [Comment]. Facebook.
