Moores Hill (750?) Built 1939
October 15, 2025
October 15, 2025
Do you remember a time when things were built and programs were started simply for the reason of benefitting the community, and not because they would turn a profit? Honestly, I don't. My generation isn't old enough. You have to go back to at least the pre-internet age, and in many cases even further than that. I'm talking about a time when communities made decisions that benefited everyone, simply because it would benefit them! Think of all the well-run Little League programs that existed across the state. The maintained parks and basketball courts in every neighborhood. The local community school that maybe wasn't the most efficient use of tax dollars, but made a bigger impact. The YMCA's and Boys and Girls Clubs scattered across big towns that I constantly see on the news closing their doors these days. I'm not pretending that everything used to be honky-dory and perfectly equitable for everyone, or that people never cared about profitability back in the day, but it does seem like there used to be a greater sense of altruism in communities than there is today. One of the greatest examples of this was when Andrew Carnegie donated tens of millions of dollars to cities and small towns to build libraries, simply because he believed that all people should have access to books via a free and public library. Be cynical about a billionaire and their donations all you want, but this is the kind of benevolent spirit I'm talking about. Not only did Carnegie give generously to libraries, but he also gave to other educational institutions as well. One example of this resulted in a stunning building and relatively unknown gym nestled in a quiet community in western Dearborn County.
If you drive through Moores Hill, at first glance it feels like any other sleepy small town in Indiana. There are older buildings still hanging on interspersed with some newer houses and a couple of businesses and churches. If you make it back to the southwest corner though, the trees open up and you stumble upon one of the most magnificent buildings I've found anywhere in my travels across the state: a four-story structure that towers over the hill that sits behind it. This is the Carnegie Hall building that was built in 1907 and originally was home to a university. That university moved to Evansville only a decade later. Then it was used as Moores Hill High School until 1978 when it was consolidated into South Dearborn along with Dillsboro and Aurora. All of this is according to Historic Hoosier Gyms by Kyle Neddenriep. Since then it's been used for a variety of community services. A small gym was built next to this grand structure in 1939. This is the gym I was in search of when I drove down from Greensburg this October. The gym today doesn't resemble much of what it did when it was hosting high school games in the 40s-70s. Historic Hoosier Gyms reveals that the court doesn't even run the same direction as it used to (the only other place that I can think of that this happened to was Williamsburg). It used to run north and south, but after the newer elementary school was added on to it in the 80s, it now runs east and west. The permanent bleachers that used to be on the sides are also gone. It may be a shell of what it once was, but the spirit of the Moores Hill Bobcats still lingers.
You'll have to squint a little bit to imagine what the gym layout used to look like based off the current pictures. The court ran the opposite direction from what it does now, and it used to have permanent wooden bleachers along the sidelines. You can find a dead giveaway about the court direction by looking up at the rafters. The big metal trusses run parallel with the current floor which is unheard of. Gyms built like this always run perpendicular, and this one originally did as well. Today there is one big set of retractable wooden bleachers along one sideline that go up 13 rows. On either side of it are tall concrete storage rooms that jut out towards the court. There is random signage around the walls consistent with what you would find in most elementary school gyms. There is a neat little Moores Hill Bobcat mural on the bottom of one sideline wall. The floor is stained a darker gold color with blue inside the foul lanes. The only other sign of what the gym used to look like is in the brickwork. You can tell where some old windows were filled in along with where the old bleachers would've been secured to the walls in a couple spots. It's like it left behind just a couple clues to help us see its former glory.
The Bobcats didn't have a lot of postseason success while playing in this gym, they only made it past the second round of the sectional two times. They still had plenty of strong teams though, many of which were led by Herman Grinstead. This was a proud community that loved their basketball team. They got to hang on to it longer than many small towns that consolidated in the mid-60s, but once it was gone, it was gone. The finality of it can feel jarring. These gyms are usually the last vestiges of the core memories that so many young kids formed growing up. If you lived in Moores Hill back then, you probably grew up watching games here and wanted to be a Bobcat. You can still grow up wanting to be a South Dearborn Knight, but it's not quite the same. We can argue if older is necessarily better, but it's hard to argue that in this case at least, what once was, was probably a little more special.
