Union City (Old) (500?) Built 1920
March 24, 2026
March 24, 2026
Geography, specifically maps, have always fascinated me. I remember in fifth grade when we were given a blank map of the United States and told to fill in as many states as we could. I probably got like seven or eight. I was not only disappointed in myself, but I became obsessed. There was a United States map in the back of our social studies book, and I would hold it under my desk and study it all day in class while only half paying attention to what my teacher was saying during math or whatever other subject we were supposed to be doing. Within a few weeks I could fill in that whole map without breaking a sweat. It was a rush! I also grew up only two miles from the Indiana/Michigan line. One day my honorary uncle took me and a couple of my cousins up into Michigan, and he parked the car right on the line. "Half us are in Indiana right now, and the other half are Michigan!" he declared. It blew my mind. Fast forward 20+ years, and I'm planning a gym trip along another state line. The Indiana/Ohio line is one I only crossed growing up if I was headed out on a long trip along the toll road. Now I find myself near it all the time. Instead of crossing it though, I wanted to travel along it. I headed straight over to Union City, and then followed it down to College Corner (where I literally straddled it), and then I traversed it a little more down to Aurora before ending in Dillsboro. I experienced all sorts of different landscapes, and even more unique gyms. It all started in Union City, where I found a gym hidden inside a school with so much history I didn't even uncover some of it until after my visit.
College Corner gets all the headlines (and rightfully so, which I'll be writing more about soon) for being a town situated directly on a state line, but Union City shares this distinction as well. Most of the town lies in Indiana, but the eastern quarter is planted firmly in the land of the Buckeyes. Those on the Indiana side have been attending Union City High School dating back to 1872. They've been playing basketball in the state tournament since 1916, and they started playing their home games in a grand brick building downtown starting in 1920. The building was constructed to replace the previous high school which had burned down (I swear a high school must have burned down every day in Indiana in the early 1900s). The building served as the home of the Union City Indians until 1958 when a new high school was built on the northwest side of town. This was right around the time when Union City absorbed the Jackson Township and Wayne Township high schools. It feels like it should have been a high school longer. The place looks incredible from the outside. Even though today it's been turned into senior apartments, it still feels regal on the inside. On the upper floor there is even an incredible auditorium completely intact. I got a good view through a door window. Nestled inside the school, there is a gym as well. You can't even tell where exactly it sits from the outside. It's discreet, hiding amongst the many old classrooms in the school. I've only heard one person mention this gym to me in the last three years I've been doing this. It feels like a bit of a secret, though not one that's intentionally being kept. Hopefully I can shed a bit of light on it, because it deserves to be seen.
Mr. Robert Krieg who is the property manager of the old school/apartment building was kind enough to let me check out the gym. He buzzed me and showed me where to go. As I stepped through the ancient doors, I knew the place was old, but I hadn't looked beforehand to see exactly how old. Just in the last couple of days, I finally looked it up. This building and gym were built in 1920. That would make this gym tied with Mooresville as the oldest gym still standing that was built specifically for high school basketball. I also saw that the whole building was added to the National Register of Historic Places back in 2010. I was standing on hallowed ground and I didn't even know it! As I said, the gym is buried inside the school in a way that makes it pretty indistinguishable from the rest of the building. This also means it's not very large. The top of the keys are only 3-4 feet away from the half court circle, and the court is about 10 feet short from sideline to sideline. The hardwood floor is a beatiful dark-gold color. Along three sides of the court, the out of bounds line is just a foot from the wall. There is obviously no seating on those three sides. The lower baseline walls are blue and have a big "WS" painted on them in white. This stands for West Side which was the name of the middle school that was housed here after the high school closed until 2003. This is really all there is to point out along these three walls except for a couple old windows up above the sideline. The other sideline area is where this place shines.
You enter the gym from one of the corners along this sideline. There is a 10-12 foot wall between the entrances. Three rows of wooden retractable bleachers sit in front of it. The majority of the seating actually sits above that wall in a balcony. That balcony is only accessed through the second floor exterior hallway outside the gym. Maybe not the most convenient, but it gives the place even more charm. The balcony is where that charm kicks up quite a few notches. There are 6 rows of beautiful dark brown bleachers running across the length of the balcony. They're interrupted by stairs, the entrances themselves, and a section of the wall jutting out in the middle. I later found out that this actually encases an elevator which was obviously added later. The bleachers have dividers and seat numbers painted on them. They look fantastic. An elegant wrought iron railing runs across the first row of seating to keep patrons from falling onto the court below. Big iron support beams obstruct views, but they only add to the magic. Looking at old pictures Mr. Krieg showed me, I actually found that there was another smaller balcony hanging along the opposite sideline wall. It was accessed by stairs on the east end. I'm sure that would have created quite an environment for the players down below! As I walked out of the gym, I also noticed there are big metal doors leading to underneath the balcony that have been painted light blue. They look ominous, but the cheery color disarms them a bit.
The one other thing I saw right before I headed out was a plaque honoring Ray Buckingham and the 42 points he scored in a game back in 1924. It was a county record that stood for a long time. The plaque is really the only piece of Union City basketball history left other than the gym itself. I didn't see any other memorabila laying around. While I'd love to see some, it's okay. This gym is a living monument to the history of Indian basketball in this town. I'm hoping to get over to the current high school gym this coming season and maybe I'll see some more there. In the meantime, I hope people read this, see the pictures, and don't forget the old Union City gym any time soon. It's a place that will be etched in my mind for a long, just as I'm sure it's etched on the hearts of people who called it home all those years ago.
