Edwardsport (1,200) Built 1958
July 25, 2025
July 25, 2025
Are you someone who loves to throw all your plans to the wind to do something spontaneous? Are you a free spirit who just goes with the wind wherever it may take you? Do you love the idea of calling someone up last second on a Friday evening just to see where the night takes you? Then I cannot relate to you whatsoever! I am a planner. I like to know what I'm doing, where I'm going, and who I'm doing it with weeks in advance. I'm this way in my job, with my family, when it comes to vacations, just about in every facet of life. People have asked me how I'm able to drop my kids off at school, drive hours away visiting 3-5 gyms, and still make it back in time to pick them up at the end of the day. It's because I'm an absolute maniac when I schedule these gym days. I plan every single part of the trip and route I'm taking down to the minute. I make sure I give myself plenty of time to explore the gyms and learn about their history so I'm not rushed, but I also make sure I stay on schedule. At the end of this summer though, on the last week before school started, I was faced with a situation that forced me out of my comfort zone. A kind soul reached out to me on Facebook out of the blue and told me that he could show me an old gym I hadn't been to yet, but that I had to hurry. It's future was uncertain and he didn't know how long it would still be standing. I dropped everything I was going to do that Friday, tried to convince my wife I wasn't crazy, bribed my five year old with a trip to the children's museum after we visited the gym, and off we headed a couple days later to Edwardsport.
Edwardsport is a gym that came on my radar in the spring when I was researching every single old high school listed in the IHSAA historical registry. It's a town right on the eastern edge of Knox County. The high school and gym that still stand here (at least as I'm writing this) were once home to the Edwardsport Powers. What an unbelievable mascot name and opportunity for incredible cheerblock chants! The Powers only played in this gym from 1958-1962 when the school was combined with Sandborn for one year to become Vigo, then everyone in the area consolidated into North Knox in 1964. It didn't stop hosting varsity games though, as the school building and gym actually became the home of the North Knox Warriors until 1974 when the new high school was built. North Knox actually won a sectional title during their first year in the gym in 1964. I'm guessing that helped soothe any of the hard feelings that were left over after consolidation. The gym then lived on as a junior high and elementary gym until everything closed in 2011. Since then the gym has largely been wasting away, looking for a buyer and second life that has never come. Today the school portion of the gym is most likely too far gone to be salvageable. A last ditch effort is being looked at to see if the gym can hopefully be saved even if the school cannot. This has happened countless other places, so I pray it is feasible here. There's too much history and legacy here to just toss it aside. I hope someone who feels the same way can come up with a vision and the finances to make it happen. The unknown and warning of potential doom was enough to make me run there as fast as I could in the meantime.
Walking into the building, it's evident why the person who was kind enough to reach out to me did so. The air was so musty it felt like it was pressing down on top of me. I was instructed to stay in the gym, and that's what I did. What I found was an arena consistent with what I would expect from one that was built in the late-50s. It has two levels to it, with the upper sections being reached by stairs in all four corners of the gym. The lower level clearly had retractable bleachers originally that were taken out at some point. It looks like they probably went up about 7-8 rows. There is a sign listing the seating capacity at 1,200. It certainly feels a little bigger than that, which makes me wonder if that was the capacity after the lower level seats were taken out, but I could be wrong. I have been pretty far off on my seating capacity guesses at times. The upper level retains the original permanent bleachers and they are pretty neat. There are 8 rows of wooden bench seats that sit up on little risers. The ground is painted grey, the seats an off-white, and the steps black. The lighting wasn't great, but they just really stood out to me. Long rectangular windows line the upper sideline walls. A red bannister runs across the center separating the two levels.
When I came down from taking pictures around the upper level, I stood at half-court and spent a couple minutes kicking what had to be a half-inch of dust off of the center circle. A gorgeous Warrior logo sitting against a red background can be found here, but I honestly could barely make it out before I cleared the area with my shoe. This was the case across the entire gym floor. I was also able to locate a couple sets of tomahawks that were painted right inside both sidelines. "Warriors" is written in beautiful red script along the baselines as well which was a little easier to see. For a court that hasn't been used for anything in almost 15 years, it looks pretty good. The baseline wall above the main entrance is pretty bare except for one practice hoop and "Believe To Achieve" written high up on the wall (this definitely had to be an addition from when the gym served the elementary school). The opposite baseline wall features a pretty big stage that was filled in at some point with an unknown material. It's covered with what almost looks like red felt and has a big "NK" plastered on it. It's framed in with a unique type of white brick around the outside. Two exit doors sit on either side of it. On the wall here you can find double-barreled old school basket-raising machines which I always like to see for whatever reason. Right outside the gym in a foyer now filled with boxes of old memorabilia and pictures, you can still find the original concession stand and ticket booth.
As of October, 2025 this old gym is still standing. If you're reading this far into the future, I hope it still is. I'm thankful I was able to see it when I did, because as we've covered here many times before, you just never know when it's going to be too late. The place is worth saving, but that fact alone often isn't enough to actually save it. I'll end with a story that my guide told me before I left. He said that one time he was working outside the school when someone stopped by. The man was driving by and noticed someone was there working. He asked if he could just stop pop in and see the gym really quick because he had graduated from the school back when it was either Edwardsport or North Knox High School. My guide told him that was fine. When he came in a little later to check on the man, he found him standing on the court, looking around with tears in his eyes. I'm not sure if he was crying because all the old memories came flooding back, or if he was heartbroken by the condition the place was in, or both. What I do know is that I felt some deep-seeded sense of validation in a sorrowful way. This was a story of a person who felt the way I feel about these old gyms. Someone who understands that they are more than just structures or places that people play basketball. They are, or at least one time were, the lifeblood of communities. The places where people gathered and united for a common purpose and forgot about all the other hardships in their lives, at least for a few hours. I felt for that guy, because I know so many people have been in his shoes. I'm glad he got that moment. I just hope it wasn't his last opportunity to have it.
