Some buildings don’t just sit in one place and wait for history to happen: they evolve and somehow find a reason to stick around. Marshall County’s old infirmary is one of those places! Over the years, it’s been rebuilt, relocated, partially demolished, and repurposed, but it’s never quite disappeared. Today, much of the landmark still stands. 

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.

Indiana’s dotted with hundreds of old one-room schools, and Delaware County is no exception. Of all of them, though, the best-preserved is undoubtedly Monroe Township’s old District 3 school, better known as Corinth. A newly-formed group aims to restore the historic building and return the old schoolhouse to its former glory.

The tiny Grant County community of Fowlerton isn’t on the way to anywhere, but 268 people still call it home. An old schoolhouse anchors the north end of town, but much of Leach Avenue -Fowlerton’s main drag- has long shed its commercial storefronts. All except one, that is: a lone survivor anchors the southeast corner of Leach and West Second Street. On a recent drive through town, I found myself slowing down and wondering about it.

Muncie is home to three old Thunderbolt tornado sirens. One of them, at Southview Elementary, still works as intended! Another at the old Riley Elementary has a broken chopper and sort of just languidly wheezes there. I thought the last one, at what was once Morrison-Mock Elementary School, was still in sterling standing! Unfortunately, it no longer rotates. 

In 1966, Marsh Supermarkets caused a stir across the Midwest when it jumped into the rapidly growing convenience-store business. Over the next four decades, the company built its Village Pantry brand into a regional powerhouse by opening 154 locations across Indiana and Ohio! Today, some have taken on new lives under different names. Whenever I stumble across one, I can’t resist snapping a photo.

Five years ago, I launched a mission to track down every old schoolhouse in Madison County, Indiana. By the time I finished, I’d located forty-five of them. Some were standing, some were hanging on, and others were crumbling into ruins. Unfortunately, my total of forty-five has dropped by one: I recently discovered that the house I believed was Fall Creek Township’s old Spring Valley School wasn’t the school at all. It was close, though! Let me explain:

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.

A decade or so ago, my girlfriend’s mom lived off of County Road 1200-North in rural Delaware County. I was there all the time! I don’t have much reason to travel the old Dunkirk and Moore Pike past it today, but someone let me know that the old Poor schoolhouse there was in dire straits. Sure enough, it is- the roof of its porch has absconded. 

A while back, I shared a map of the tunnels under the oldest part of Ball State I created using a 1950s Sanborn fire insurance map. A few weeks later, I posted an updated map after a friend sent me an underground schematic from 1982. Several days ago, someone sent me the official map! I’m not going to post it here, but it appears as though mine was pretty accurate.