Valley College

In 1870, Francis Sipe deeded the Delaware Township Trustee a portion of his land for the construction of a District 9 schoolhouse (Delaware, 1870) on what’s now North County Road 400-East about a quarter of a mile north of East County Road 350-North (Kingman, 1874).

Rural common schools sometimes were known as colleges (Greene, 1980), and the District 9 schoolhouse was called Valley College (Greene, 1976). The current structure was built as a replacement for the original in the mid-1890s (Ellis, 1898).

Albany -the area’s largest community- maintained a separate school system from the remainder of Delaware Township, so as the village of Desoto rose to prominence it became obvious as the ideal location for a centralized, consolidated school. As early as 1900, Districts 4, 8, and 9 petitioned District 11 at Desoto to let them to send pupils there. Unfortunately, the small size of Desoto’s frame building made the arrangement impossible (Kemper, 1908).

In 1905, students of the District 4 school were sent to Valley College, but the consolidated school wasn’t graded (Kemper). In 1907, Districts 4 and 9 petitioned District 11 to consolidate again. This time, a $13,000 four-room schoolhouse was erected in Desoto (Ask, 1907) to accomodate the requests and the Valley College schoolhouse closed after the 1905-06 schoolyear. E.H. Brewington of Albany was the last teacher there (Delaware, 1905).

The District 9 Valley College school is one of the few remaining frame schoolhouses in Delaware County. In 1976, it was used for storing grain and farm implements, having recently been repainted and repaired (Greene). Today, it appears to be abandoned.

References

Delaware County, Indiana. (1870, June 21). Deed Book 33. p. 452.

Kingman Brothers. (1874). Map of Delaware County, Indiana. Chicago, IL.

Greene, D. (1980, June 10). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 4.

Greene, D. (1976, March 3). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 4.

Ellis, J. S. (1898, August 17). Our County. Its History and Erly Settlement by Townships. The Muncie Morning News. p. 6.

Kemper, G. W. H. (1908). Education in Delaware County. In A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1 (Vol. 1, pp. 237–237). book, Lewis Publishing Company.

Ask for new bids on Desoto School (1907, July 8). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.

Delaware County Public Schools. (1905). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1905-1906. Muncie, IN.