St. Paul (700?) Built 1928
October 15, 2025
October 15, 2025
The third day of my fall break gym-hunting extravaganza was centered around a trip southeast into Decatur, Dearborn, and Franklin counties. I love this part of the state. The drive on state roads from where I live all the way down to around Madison is one of my favorites anywhere in Indiana. The constant switching from undulating hills to rolling farmland encapsulates Indiana as a whole pretty well. I had five gyms on the schedule for the day, and heading out on that Wednesday morning, my spirits were high. I took a familiar route down SR-9 through Pendleton, Greenfield, and into Shelbyville where I was forced to hop onto I-74 for a few miles against my will as I headed to my first destination: St. Paul.
I figured St. Paul was a town founded by a Catholic priest or centered around a parrish of some sort, but that's surprisingly not the case. The town was founded by an early settler named John Paul who had a vision to build a grist mill and then a town around that. According to the town website, it was actually originally called Paultown and then later changed to St. Paul by John Paul's son who wanted to honor the apostle Paul from the Bible and I suppose his father at the same time. I have to say I like St. Paul a little better than Paultown (on a side note, these settlers who had the chance to name their new villages and towns whatever they wanted really squandered their opportunities most of the time. They could go with anything they wanted, and all they did was slap "town" or "ville" on the end of their own name. What a conceited way to waste such a great chance to do something legendary). With the town being named after something so reverent to the Christian faith, you would think they would choose a mascot that matched that level of veneration, maybe the St. Paul Squires, or St. Paul Luminaries. You would be sorely mistaken. They actually took a hard left turn in the opposite direction and went with something unique and in your face: the Blasters. My mind can't help but go to what Han Solo used to clear out droids with back in the day, but the St. Paul Blasters preceded Star Wars by quite a few years. The Blasters in question here refer to the explosive TNT variety which is evident by the signage utilized in a few different spots in the gym. The Blasters played in this gym from 1928 to 1967 when they were consolidated into North Decatur. In that time they blasted their way to two sectional championships at Greensburg which was was no small feat. Like so many others built long ago and shuttered after consolidation, the gym is now a community center that still serves the people of St. Paul to this day.
The sign above the door to the gym says that it was built in 1928 and restored in 1979. I have no idea what the state of the gym was before the restoration or what it all entailed, but other than the playing floor, it doesn't look like a ton has changed since the early days of the gym. The gym features the rare but not unheard of setup of a sideline stage with seating only along the opposite sideline. The bleachers here initially made me think of Marengo because they're permanent and sit up behind a five foot wall. The difference between here and Marengo is that St. Paul doesn't have any lower retractable seating in front of the wall. The wall is painted red which matches the paint that is featured elsewhere along the lower walls of the gym. The permanent wood bleachers above the wall are stained a dark brown and go up about 10 rows. There are little cutouts in the corners that sit above the entrances to the gym on the far ends of the bleachers. There are ten pretty standard windows that line the upper wall above the bleachers. Remarkably they haven't been filled in over the course of the nearly hundred years that the gym has been standing.
As previously mentioned, opposite of the bleachers is an expansive stage area. It looks odd today because it appears that the walls on either end of the actual stage opening have been torn out and you can see right through to the rooms behind. There is no curtain either, so the entire side is just wide open. I've never seen anything like it before. Who knows what the reason for it was. One thing that sits up on the stage that I absolutely loved is the old scorer's table with "Blasters" written across it in red lettering and the little sticks of dynamite logo right beneath it. It's incredible. You'll also find that same logo high up on one baseline wall underneath a "St. Paul" sign also in red lettering. The baseline walls are otherwise completely unadorned. The basketball hoops are the classic early glass backboard kind that have the wooden piece running across the bottom so the rim could be screwed in. I'll never get tired of seeing these. The decision to use plastic tiling for the playing floor at some point obviously isn't one I love, but there's probably a good reason they did it. Money is always tight when restoring these beauties, and wood floors aren't always the most functional when the gyms are primarily being used for events and not basketball games. That's just the unfortunate reality. The gym doesn't really have a traditional foyer, but in the back hallway in which you enter the gym is a nice old picture that shows the original high school that used to sit right beside the gym. It was a grand old building that even had a turret! That would've tickled me pink as a kid if my school looked like a castle. On the outside of the gym, they've put silhouette style pictures in the lower windows of the gym that show old St. Paul players in action. It's a fantastically unique idea.
I didn't have anyone to really talk to about the history of the school or the St. Paul basketball program, so if you have any stories please reach out and share them! I'd love to hear them. A place this neat has to have had some rich traditions. As I headed out and drove to my next stop in Greensburg, I couldn't help but think about what it must have been like to attend a game here against a rival school like Clarksburg or Sandcreek when the bleachers would have been packed and the stage would've been squeezing in extra spectators. The gym will be coming up on a century old here in just a few years. What a life it's lived, and hopefully will continue to for another century. I also couldn't stop thinking about the name: the Blasters. It's hopelessly cool. Both that name and the gym will stick with me for a long, long time.
