Owensville (3,000?) Built 1950
October 17, 2024
October 17, 2024
People like to joke about how Midwesterners will treat a five hour road trip like its nothing more than a quick drive to the grocery store. It's pretty true though. People on both coasts don't really understand what it's like to have all your major cities spread apart by hundreds of miles. If you really want to see something different from where you live, you're probably going to have to spend most of the day in the car. The furthest point on my list of gyms both active and inactive that I need to visit still is Mount Vernon at 3 hours and 59 minutes away from my home. I told my wife that as long as a gym is within four hours, it won't really feel that far away, and luckily every gym in the Hoosier state fits that criteria by at least one minute! My trip to Owensville was the first place that really tested that theory. At 3 hours and 35 minutes I crossed a time zone into Gibson County and arrived at my destination. I picked up the key to the gym from the most picturesque little Carnegie library you will ever find, set in the middle of an immaculate town square. Just seeing this made the trip worth it, but that key gave me access to a place filled with even more imagination and discovery.
Entering the old Owensville gym is like walking into an episode of Happy Days where Fonzie and the gang decide to join the basketball team. The walls and corners of the gym are filled top to bottom with nostalgia and memorabilia from the 50s and 60s. Letter jackets, pictures, cheer block outfits, uniforms, even small pieces of furniture abound. You name it, and it's probably there. All of it represents the school and town of Owensville when it was in its prime. Walking around the upper concourse is like doing a gallery walk through the school's history. The coolest piece is one of the first two glass backboards that were ever used in an Indiana high school gym from back in 1921. According to Historic Hoosier Gyms by Kyle Neddenriep, the other sits in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in New Castle.
Owensville managed to fight off consolidation longer than most communities and made it to 1974 before merging with Haubstadt and Fort Branch (both who have wonderful gyms still standing. Gibson County has done a great job preserving these beauties). They had a really strong run of early success and won 10 sectionals starting in the 20s all the way through the early 50s. Only one of those sectionals occured in this gym as it opened in 1950. It's one of the first gyms designed by Ralph Legeman whose fingerprints are all over Hoosier Hysteria thanks to his famous sunken gym design that was popularized throughout southern Indiana. As the gym approaches 75 years of serving the community, it's important to talk about what makes it so special beyond just the artifacts that are displayed around it.
From the inside, the Owensville gym does not look or feel 75 years old. First of all, it's pretty big! Second of all, the community has done an impeccable job of maintaining it. Like all sunken gyms, the court sits down in what feels like a massive pit (an elegant one though) and has nine rows of permanent wooden bleachers leading down to it. The seating wraps around the court on all sides, except for the baseline end below the entrance to the gym. On that end is a cinder block wall with doors leading to the locker rooms behind it. Fans can watch, cheer, and heckle from the concourse above while standing behind a black railing. This wall has the old school fight song displayed on a banner hanging from the railing behind the main hoop. There are also two wooden practice hoops hanging behind the main one on either side. The bleachers are painted either black or white in alternating sections which are the team colors of the Kickapoos (extremely fun name honoring a historical Native American tribe). This isn't a paint design you see many places but I think it looks really cool when looking down on the bleachers from above.
Looking down and up around the gym yields many other pleasant sights. Down on the hardwood is a classically-styled Native American chief logo at center court. The rest of the court design is very subdued and has a nice light-colored wood finish. A thick black band around the perimeter of the court serves as the out of bounds line. The ceiling also as the classic sunken gym feel with two long sides coming together at a center point to create a pretty flat obtuse angle. The original seating section letters still hang above the bleachers below. Some of the oldest athletic accomplishment banners you will find hang high above some memorabilia on one baseline wall. Right next to them is a scoreboard that looks even more archaic. The circle clock design in the middle of it is really neat. An old black box concession area sits right next to the entry doors to the gym. In the same area is a big color photograph of the old school before it was torn down off of the gym. I wish more old gyms had something like this to give people a visual reminder of the grand structures that used to sit beside them.
I could go on for days about how well done this community has done in preserving their history and traditions within the Owensville gym along with the gym itself. It's a testament to the spirit of the town as a whole. The gym continues to be an asset to Owensville as it is used for walking above on the concourse, youth games, and other community events. While these are all great, I've never seen an old gym more suited to play at least one throwback game a year with the local high school teams. Filling these stands with people cheering on kids from Owensville and the surrounding areas would feel so right it just couldn't be wrong. I hope it comes to pass sometime in the near future. I would make the 3 hour and 35 minute trip back in a heartbeat to see a sight as beautiful as that.
