English (1,100?) Built 1955
July 7, 2025
July 7, 2025
Pennsylvania has always been my favorite non-Indiana state to drive through. There's something about the vast rolling hills of farmland that struck me as a kid and has stuck with me ever since. It just seems majestic. When I was in high school, my church youth group went on a service trip to an Appalachian region of North Carolina. In my head I was expecting the same type of terrain I saw in Pennsylvania all those years before. I was greatly mistaken (you would think the Westview Junior-High geography bee champion would know better). Where I was expecting rolling hills and valleys, I was instead greeted with roads that can only be described as roller coasters in a dense forest. My ears popped on and off for hours as I listened to Weird Al on my iPod and tried not to get sick. When we eventually got to our destination, I was able to appreciate the unbelievable beauty and unique culture that Appalachia has to offer. In this case it was absolutely about the destination, and not the journey. I haven't traveled through topography like that since that trip, and honestly that has been fine with me. This summer though, I found it unexpectedly again in my own state. Traveling down State Road 37 for what felt like an eternity, right after I passed through Paoli, everything seemed to change as I crossed into Crawford County. It was like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole. I was transported right back to that fateful trip in high school. Only this time, I was the one driving the car, and instead of a sense of dread, I had an intense sense of appreciation for what I was traveling through. The road didn't stay straight for more than a half mile at a time, and it rose and fell quicker than my heart rate during a Lions game. I finally arrived at my destination in English: a town that feels like it's situated in West Virginia, but is as Hoosier as they come.
English sits in the center but northern half of Crawford County. It's one of the smallest county seats in the whole state, with a population that has sat in the 600s since the 1950s. Driving in, it feels a bit odd. I was looking for the remnants of some type of a historical downtown like you find in almost every other small Indiana community. All I saw were houses built up into the hills. It wasn't until I got home and did a little more reading in Kyle Neddenriep's Historic Hoosier Gyms and other places and found out that most of the original downtown was basically leveled and moved due to continued floods that just devastated the area. The school was luckily built further away from the area impacted by the flooding the most. The current English school building was erected in 1955 along with a brand new gym. It served as a high school until 1976 when all four Crawford County high schools (English, Marengo, Leavenworth, and Milltown) consolidated into one. For a long time, all of the former schools continued on as elementaries (Leavenworth and Milltown still do). Eventually Marengo closed and became a Boys and Girls Club. In 2016, English closed its doors as well. Since then it has largely sat empty, though Superintendent Brandon Johnson told me during my visit that they plan to reopen it as a career center in the next couple of years which was very exciting to hear. For 23 years though, it was home to the English Red Raiders. While they didn't have much postseason success during that time, the gym here played host to many victories, and even more memories.
The defining feature of the English gym to me is the classic arched roof design that immediately dates it to the 1950s. Other than the WPA gyms of the 30s, there isn't a more iconic gym design that connects to a specific period of time. What makes the design stand out even more here are the wooden beams that crisscross all along the length of the ceiling, very similar to what you'll find at Winslow. These beams have been painted white though, which makes them blend in with the rest of the ceiling. You would think that it would make them stand out less, but to me it almost makes them more distinctive, as I haven't seen that specific motif anywhere else. The arched roofline spans from sideline to sideline wall, settling at about 10 feet above the top row of bleachers. The bleacher setup here immediately reminded me of the old Alexandria gym. There are 5 rows of retractable red plastic bleachers at the floor level on both sides. Second levels sit above that features 7 rows of permanent wooden bleachers. The steps and bottoms of the bleachers are painted grey, while the seat benches are painted red which really make them pop. The upper levels are reached by short sections of stairs in two corners of the gym along with openings to the lower retractable bleachers. There is definitely enough seating here for a throwback game, which I would definitely journey back to see!
The rest of the gym has plenty to discuss as well. The baseline wall through which you enter the gym is pretty bare, but hanging right in front of it is one of my favorite old gym features, and if you regularly follow my blog, you probably already know what it is. On the sides of the main hoop, but sitting a little behind it, are two old wooden practice hoops that people could use along the baseline area. They always look a little weird, but I just love them. The opposing baseline wall has a grand old stage with a bright red curtain running across it. It has a basic off-white frame running around it and two big cinder block columns that jut out slightly on both sides of it. It looks like it used to have padding underneath it, but that was removed at some point. One side of it you can also find one of the ancient contraptions that was used to raise and lower the hoops. The court itself is in pretty good shape considering the school hasn't been used for about a decade. It's stained a classic golden-yellow color and has a marvelous old Red Raider logo at center court. "English Raiders" is also written in red block letters right inside each sideline. I'm not sure if the court design is original to the gym, but if it was redone at some point, they did a good job keeping a retro feel to it.
If there ever was a county that had legitimate grounds for spurning the state's consolidation efforts of the 50s and 60s, it would be Crawford County. The undulating and curvy landscape make everything here take longer to reach. Five miles away here is a lot different than five miles away in the flatlands of Madison County where I live. The fact that they managed to stave off consolidation until the mid-70s shows that many people felt it wasn't best for their students (though I'm pretty sure 99% of all small towns felt this way at the time. Nobody wanted to lose their local school). I'd love to hear from local people to learn what finally pushed them to make the decision to move to one high school. As difficult as the decision had to be, I have to give the people of Crawford County credit for the way they've preserved their history and continued to utilize all four schools, and for me selfishly, the gyms. It may not be a part of the state that gets a lot of publicity, but in the last year it has become one of my favorite places to visit. I've visited two of the old gyms here so far, and I have two more to come back for (that's not even mentioning the current high school gym, which I'm hoping to visit soon for an actual game). I hope more Hoosiers take the time to get to know not just the history of Crawford County, but the people here who lived it and continue to make it special.
