Corn Cob

Not much is left of Licking Township’s District 3 schoolhouse, commonly known as Corn Cob. The school was one of Blackford County’s earliest to be discontinued under a then-new law that compelled township trustees to discontinue schools where attendance had fallen below twelve pupils, as well as to provide transportation for all students who lived two miles from the school they were compelled to attend (Law, 1907). Upon the school’s closure, its students were conveyed to the District 5 school, known as Pleasant Grove (Hartford, 1907). 

The District 3 school’s bizarre name of Corn Cob appears to have been a common nickname for an extremely rural or backwards area, similar to whimsical locations like “Possom Trot” or the “Polecat Church” (News, 1916).

The Pleasant Grove school, a one-room structure one and a half miles south of District 3 by way of Angling Pike, was gutted by fire in 1936. Though it was believed salvageable, school officials decided against doing so, instead choosing to send its pupils and teacher (School, 1936) to the larger Carney School three miles northeast.

The Corn Cob schoolhouse, also idiomatically referred to as Corn Cob Chapel, was fallen down by 1948 (The Hard Way, 1948). Today, its remains are invisible throughout most of the year. 

References

Law Will Close School (1907, April 13). The Muncie Star. p. 10.

Hartford City (1907, September 16). The Muncie Star. p. 6.

News From a New Locality (1916, March 17). The Monroe Journal. Page 2.

School Building Is Damaged By Fire (1936, December 19). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 10.

The Hard Way (1948, April 24). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 16.