Dupont (400?) Built 1938
January 2, 2024
January 2, 2024
What do you do when you're in possession of something that you know has value, but you don't really have a purpose for it, and no one around you seems to have one either? Over Christmas break my wife and I were doing some major reorganizing around the house, and she pulled out the tote of all my childhood treasures. Old basketball trophies, keychain collection, basketball cards, things of that nature. She reminded me that the last time we went through these things probably 5 years ago, I said we had to keep all of them. Here they were again years later, untouched and in exactly the same spot as before. Looking at them again, I felt the same pull. Why did I feel the need to hang on to these things that were taking up space and never seeing the light of day? I think it's because at one point in time they meant more to me than anything else. I know how hard I worked for the trophies. I know how much time I spent organizing and analyzing my sports card collections. Those things used to be my world. Now they're just sitting there. I currently have no use for them, no one else certainly does, yet they still mean something to me somewhere inside of me. The quandry again is, what to do with them? This is the question a few communities in our state are asking about their historic gyms right now. I found a beautiful one down State Road 7 in Dupont that I hope can find a meaningful answer to that question soon.
The Dupont Hornets, as they were known before they were absorbed into Madison in 1965, never managed to win that elusive sectional title that every small town coveted. The closest they came was in 1930 when they made it to the final against Scottsburg and couldn't quite finish the job. What's odd is that I'm not sure they were actually called the Hornets at that time. During my visit to the Dupont gym, I saw some old pictures that were hung in a display case. One shows a team photo from 1950 with the label "Dupont Red Devils" underneath. This is confusing as it is the only place I have seen them referred to as the Red Devils instead of the Hornets. Either it is an odd mistake, or at some point after that photo was taken, their mascot name was switched to the Hornets. Schools in this era would occasionally change the name of their mascot for one reason or another, so it wouldn't be unheard of. I've seen a few reported cases of this when the mascot name in question was some form of the "devils." Many of these communities in the heart of the Bible Belt didn't exactly love their students being represented by the leader of the underworld (understandably so). I don't know for certain, but it's just a hunch that may have been the reasoning behind a possible name switch.
I arrived in Dupont on a frigid January morning. Mr. Ralph Birge was kind enough to show me around the gym and fill me in one some of its story. The gym was was added on to the original high school in 1938. After consolidation, the old high school building was torn down and a more modern elementary was built attached to the gym. The elementary was used for many years before closing around 2010. Since then it has passed through the hands of the school corporation to the local township. Over the last decade, a few businesses have rented space in the classroom portions of the building, but outside of the occasional travel team practice or pickup game, the gym has largely sat empty. Thankfully, you wouldn't be able to to tell by looking at it. It seems to be in great condition. Part of this may be due to the fact that it is built like a fortress. All four walls are made of cobbled together stones. Not only does it look really cool, but it is as sturdy as they come. The only place I've seen anything like it is in Middletown. The stones are mostly grey or a light tan color, and the walls provide a scenic background for basketball. The gym mercifully hasn't had any of the old windows filled in, so the morning light streamed through the glass to illuminate the beautiful old floor as I took pictures. It was a mystical scene.
The natural light in the gym gave us a good view of the rest of the place so we didn't need to turn any other lights on. When you walk through the doors to the gym, straight ahead of you is a gorgeous old stage that is framed in yellow and black with a heavy gold curtain spanning its length. Above it is written "Education: The Light of Progress" (I may need to write that in big letters across the top of my board in my classroom at school). Below is some modern padding to protect the players with "Hornets" written on it with the mascot logo on each side. If you peer behind the curtain you can see another portion of the great stone walls. In the upper right hand corner of this baseline wall is a wooden plaque displaying the Dupont High School Honor Roll from a certain period of time. In one small spot, "World War" is written on it which leads one to believe it was probably a group of students from the early 40s. Both sidelines have had the permanent seating sections taken out at some point. They've been replaced with a few wooden seating benches that also rise up and serve as supports for what I think are HVAC units of some sort. Judging by the amount of floor space, I can only imagine the old bleachers were about five rows high. The windows above the sideline walls are tall and narrow instead of the usual square or horizontal rectangles shapes you typically see in these WPA gyms. An old scoreboard hangs high in one corner. The baseline wall beside it is bare except for more padding behind the basket. The hardwood floor is medium-brown color, while the inside of the foul lanes are yellow and the semicircles at the top of the keys are white. The center court circle has a menacing hornet sitting within a yellow background. All of it fits together immaculately.
After staring at all my old stuff in a big plastic tote, I made the brave decision to throw out a couple of things... and put the rest back inside and shut the lid. I don't really have a plan for what I'm going to do with any of it, but I also can't bring myself to just put it out to pasture. In some way those things are a core part of who I am, of the journey I've taken to get where I am today. There isn't a tangible value to them, but there's a value to me that goes deeper than any kind of purpose they can serve in my life at the present time. I couldn't help but make the connection to the Dupont gym when I visited it the day after going through all my stuff. Right now the gym is in limbo as the powers that be decide what the next step is. Hopefully it can be sold to someone who can find a way to preserve it while also providing a functional service for the community. What I do know is that it has to much intrinsic value, and means too much to people in the town of Dupont who have lived their whole lives here to just discard it or let it rot away. I've seen places like Pine Village and Bourbon level absolutely beautiful gyms in the last few years because the community simply didn't know what to do with them. Shields Gym is presently crumbling in the center of Seymour for the same reason. I pray a better fate awaits the Dupont gym. It deserves a second act that's as fruitful as its first.
