Yesterday, rather than returning to West Lafayette in the morning as planned, I decided to take another solo 4-wheeling ride around my area. I explored some back roads that I hadn’t been on in years. It was strange to see how so many things had changed, houses falling apart, a significant increase in trailers, and more disturbing, the increase in trash in yards. However, I was glad to see some things like the crooked bridge road were just as I’d left them.

I drove by the old cemetery that I helped cleanup every year in 4-H. Following this direction gave me a back view of the old school building on my road. This building has always intrigued me. My dad and grandparents had attended school there. However, they shut its doors before my dad completed, so he finished his high school years at Turkey Run, like me. The school was called “Greene Township HS”. It was built in 1923, the result of a consolidation of the area’s one-room school houses (one of which was located where our current house now stands). By 1958, enrollment was down to 77 and the high school students had been sent to Turkey Run. The school officially closed in 1967. Here’s a line drawing of the school at its prime that was created for the 75th anniversary of the school’s first graduating class.

My dad said it was a nice school. I can vaguely remember dad taking me there as a toddler. He would play basketball in the gym, and I would sit on the bleachers. All I remember was it was dimly lit by the sun through the huge windows. I also recall seeing a picture of a woman in a frame on the ground right inside the front entrance. I can still see her face, but the picture is long gone. My mom says I was only 2, so it’s I think it’s safe to call it my earliest memory.

The school has an interesting history. For years, a homeless woman lived in the basement. I recall staring at the door to where she lived everyday as we drove by in the school bus. I always hoped I would see her. After she left (I’m not sure where), there were rumors of devil worshiping taking place in the gymnasium, accompanied by animal sacrifices. “666” and pentagrams were found spray painted throughout. Around 1995, someone set fire to the building. My mom was actually the one who discovered the blaze, as she was driving home late from a meeting. The building is large & close to the road. She said it was the eeriest feeling she’s ever had. A girl on the school bus told me it was some of her friends that set fire to it to get rid of the devil worshipers.

Much of the outer structure of the building still stands, as well as bits of the interior. It had always been my dream to save up my money and renovate the school, to make it a community center. The gym was still in such great shape; I was certain the restoration would be possible. The fire pretty much destroyed my dream.

There is a point to rambling about the school’s history. As I drove by yesterday, my curiosity was finally sparked. Despite warnings from my parents when I was little about how dangerous it would be to go inside, I grabbed my camera and went inside. Walking through the front doors was an experience straight out of a horror movie. As I stepped in, birds suddenly flew out of the rafters, creating the only sound in the otherwise dead slience. I went into nearly every room on the main floor. I lost the courage to explore the basement, but I took some photos through the window. There’s something about charred furnaces that just freak me out.

The gymnasium area was now home to many large trees, growing up through the building and around the iron beams that still spanned overhead. The area was beautiful. I would love to make it a park. I found all the urinals still intact, and the remains of toilet bases hovering above. I believe all the desks and such items had been removed long before the fire. I spent an hour carefully stepping through the building. I was amazed that the wooden front doors were still there and I found the backboard in the gym still on the wall. I took pictures of everything, but I ran out of disk space, so I will need to go back another day to get full building photos and possibly retake some with my Canon.

Check out the photos here: Flickr