Burnettsville (500?) Built 1935
October 16, 2024
October 16, 2024
I've written plenty at this point about how consistently impressed I am by the community members who continue to keep the old gyms that I've had the pleasure of visiting alive. Most of them attended the schools themselves before they were consolidated and often destroyed. Many of the towns are unincorporated at this point, and the gyms along with a church or two are all that is left. Burnettsville, Indiana does in fact still have a post office and its own zipcode, but the rest of the story feels all too familiar. The Burnettsville gym was built in 1935 as an addition to the old high school. The Burnettsville Bees played in this wonderfully preserved gymnasium until they were consolidated into Twin Lakes in 1963. As in most places, this massive change in the community wasn't easy for many to stomach. I heard some firsthand accounts about this and the history of the Beehive Gym from my guides on this perfect autumn morning, Mr. Dave Marquess and Mr. Larry McLeland.
Mr. McLeland graduated from Burnettsville and Mr. Marquess attended it as a younger student before the consolidation hit. They both talked about the hard feelings that the people of the town had towards the other communities they were being forced to join. Losing your school in some ways felt like losing your identity as a town. The animosity carried over onto the basketball court where students from the outlying communities around Monticello which housed the new high school, felt like they were overlooked when it came time to tryout for the team each year. They were looked down on as farm kids or just people from a tiny town because they weren't from the bigger "city." It became political. Many great players from Burnettsville never actually had the chance to play high school basketball in its golden age after the merging of the schools. At a time when basketball meant everything in these small Indiana towns, I can only imagine how much this must have stung.
It wasn't all gloom and doom though. Both of my hosts told me some fun and interesting stories that showed just how many great memories this gym has been home to. Mr. Marquess told me how during the day, the gym was actually where students would pick up their lunches. The kitchen was under the stage, and there was a little opening that has since been paneled over where students would pick up their trays at basically floor level. That was wild to think about. The gym was connected to the school both through the basement and a door at the top of the bleachers that now serves as an emergency exit. Mr. McLeland played for the Burnettsville team and remembers the best shooters taking two-handed set shots all the way back at the half court line (it's not quite regulation length but still really far!). In the 60s, the gym was used for roller skating nights as the youth would put on some records and cruise around with their friends. In the 70s, the gym briefly served as a spring factory that Mr. Marquess actually worked in before it was returned to a community board and turned back into the Beehive Community Gym. It's served a lot of purposes over the years, but most importantly, it's always served the community.
While I enjoyed hearing all of these memories, I also loved just walking around and taking the whole gym in. The outside itself is striking. Again, this was a perfect fall day right as the leaves were starting to turn, and the surrounding community framed the gym beautifully. The walls inside and outside are a charming dark brown brick. When you walk through the front double doors, there's a little foyer where the ticket booth and concession stand used to be (the original double doors are pictured at the bottom of the blog, and they now reside in the town's community center up the street). Opposite of the entrance along the baseline is an eyecatching stage. It's enclosed in an even darker brown brick perimeter. Below it you can see the opening where students used to receive their school lunches from the kitchen. Cheerful red doors stand on each side leading to stage access and the old dressing and bathrooms below. The mouthpieces of an ancient HVAC system hang in the corners on this end. The ceiling is slightly arched and held up with heavy metal trusses. Looking back from the stage to the entrance, you'll see the solitary double doors beckoning visitors to enter this relic of hoops in the Hoosier state.
In a gym with a lot of whimsy, I think my favorite features are the big, old, rectangular windows that run along two of the walls. These windows were found in just about all of the gyms built in the 30s-50s, but 80% of them have been blocked in at some point to save money on heating and cooling costs. They have thin black nets over them to protect them from flying volleyballs, but it doesn't take away from how pretty they are. The sideline that runs along the wall that used to be connected to the school has five rows of permanent wooden bleachers spanning the length of the court. They're grey on the top and red along the sides. In the middle of this is a carpeted set of stairs leading up to a door that used to be the entrance to the old school. An American flag hangs on the wall, and you can still see the old section numbers painted on the brick as well. I was told the opposite side used to be a mirror image of this one, but the bleachers were torn out when the gym was briefly converted to a factory in the 70s. The hardwood court is in good condition and is stained a classic golden brown color. There are a few spots where you can faintly see where the old factory machines were anchored into the floor. The hoops were never converted to glass backboards which gives the place just a little extra kick of nostalgia.
After I finished my visit at the gym, Mr. McLeland was kind enough to take me two blocks over to the Burnettsville Community Center where there was some extra memorabilia from the school and gym on display. The walls were covered with graduating class pictures, including his own. He showed me a picture of his dad's team from the 40s. The original doors to the gym reside here. There was just a lot to take in. You can tell how much time Mr. McLeland has invested into this small town of 394 people. It's not going to show up on most maps, but that doesn't mean it's not important. I could feel the heartbeat of the community in the people and the buildings as I drove out. Maybe I'm just a sucker for fall weather (I definitely am), but this place just felt different throughout my visit. It felt special. I know the people who've lived here their whole lives feel the same way.
