Center School historical collection

The history of education in Delaware County is intricately tied to Center School. In 1827 the county`s first school, a one-room school structure, was built in Perry Township in the southeastern corner of the county. The school was located about three miles northwest of where Center School would be located. By 1905 there were ninety-eight school buildings in Delaware County serving some 5,500 students, and Perry Township had four such schools serving approximately 200 students. One of those schools was located at the crossroads near the geographical center of Perry Township. Shortly after the turn of the century, property directly across from this school was purchased with the intent to construct a new, more modern school building for Perry Township.

Although the construction of the school is not believed to have started until 1906, the founding of Center School dates back to 1905. Center School was established in 1905 in Perry Township, Delaware County, Indiana, and was an archetype of Indiana`s small rural schools in that period. As the 1900s began and on through the 1960s, Indiana`s rural educational landscape became filled with the State's first "consolidated" schools. These schools were the bridge between the pre-twentieth century one-room schoolhouses and the modern schools of today. Center School`s enrollment, like most rural schools, was low. Its curriculum was limited to the basics of education.

After its construction, Center School took in and consolidated the outlying one-room schoolhouses. In 1908 the first set of students matriculated from the new school. By 1912, the school saw the first class of students to complete a full twelve years of education at its facility. In 1926, the school expanded with a gymnasium with a stage, an assembly hall, a cafeteria and additional classrooms for high school students. The school, which at that time served all grades from 1st through 12th, came to be known as Center High School.

When school consolidations began again in the 1950s, Delaware County―not including Muncie City schools―had eleven high schools. When the consolidations ended in the late 1960s, Center School was one of its many victims. At the end of the 1967 school year Center School was permanently closed and its remaining students were bussed to the newer consolidated school sites in the area. Shortly thereafter the school building was torn down and the property sold.

In the spring of 1999 several graduates from Center School sought to put together a display of school memorabilia. The alumni discovered that little had been done to preserve the school`s history. With the guidance of the Ball State University Center for Middletown Studies, Joseph and Dorothy Duncan (Class of 1946 and 1949) convinced the Center School Alumni Association to make an effort to collect and preserve materials documenting the school`s history. The Duncan`s contacted Ball State University Archives and Special Collections about preserving the items they were collecting. To help in the establishment of the Center School Historical Collection, the Center School Alumni Association partnered with the Center for Middletown Studies and Archives and Special Collections to apply for an Indiana Heritage Research grant. They received the 2-year grant in May 1999 and proceeded to collect photographs and other documentation to be preserved in the Archives.