West Terre Haute (Valley) (482) Built 1934
February 16, 2026
February 16, 2026
Terre Haute is a place I've wanted to check out in earnest since I first started my blog a couple years ago. Reading about the incredible Black Cats of Terre Haute Gerstmeyer piqued my interest, and then I learned about all the different schools and teams that have represented the city so well over the years as I did more research. Terre Haute doesn't always get the best reputation nowadays when talked about in other parts of the state. I've heard it called "the armpit of Indiana" by more than one person, which just felt plain old mean. I wanted to see it for myself, and on President's Day I was finally able to do that. After stopping by Stinesville and Clinton, I made my way downtown. My first stop was the old Otter Creek High School building and gym. It was on my list as a faded gym, and boy did I make it in the nick of time. They were literally beginning demolition as I drove up. I then took exterior pictures of the old Gerstmeyer gym which I've been told has been stripped of basically everything and will probably be demolished soon as well. It was then on to the old Indiana State Lab High School building which is now where their teacher's college is housed. The old gym there has been turned into offices. My last faded gym stop was at Schulte which is now an office building as well. With all my faded gym pictures taken, I made my last stop of the day (other than one place I'd already been last year). I took the bridge over the Wabash River and into West Terre Haute to a unique little gym not enough people know about.
I heard more than one person from West Terre Haute say that they do NOT consider themselves from Terre Haute. These are two clearly distinct places to the people who live there, and honestly it did feel that way driving in. Once you get over the water, there's another quarter mile of desolate swamp and barren land before you actually reach the town of West Terre Haute. It was a little eerie. I watch way too many true crime documentaries, and it felt like the kind of place someone goes to commit a crime if they want to make sure no one is ever going to find the evidence. Once you get past that though, West Terre Haute really is a quaint little town. If you make a right turn and head north a couple blocks, you come upon the old West Terre Haute High School gym that is now the West Vigo Community Center. The gym was built in 1934 and was home to the Valley Bobcats. "Valley, didn't you just call it West Terre Haute High School?" you're probably asking yourself. I asked myself that same question while doing my research. It seems like on every official document the school was named West Terre Haute High School, but everyone who ever went there or was associated with it called it Valley High School. If anyone from there can explain this mystery to me, please reach out! As always, I'm going to officially defer to what it's listed as on John Harrell's website. Regardless, the Bobcats played in this gym from 1934-1960 when they consolidated with Concannon to form West Vigo (which has one of the wildest active gyms in the state, I'm going to try and make it there next season if at all possible). The Bobcats didn't have a ton of postseason success throughout their history, but they still had some really good teams that made their community proud, and they got to play in this gem of a gym.
It may be because of the color scheme, or that the only section of bleachers here sits behind a short wall on just one sideline, but this places reminds me a little bit of Veedersburg. It has one of the most unique setups I've found. One sideline has no seats whatsoever. The out of bounds line is about two feet from the brick wall. There are long, narrow rectangular windows that haven't been filled in high up by the ceiling. Along the opposite sideline are 8 rows of permanent wooden bleachers sitting above a five foot wall. They're the wide kind where your feet sit on the same surface as the people's rear ends who are sitting in front of you. There's a cutout on the end where you come in the gym above the entrance. There's also a small cutout in the middle of the bleachers where a tunnel leads underneath the bleachers. Above that cutout is a perch with a chair and small table. I'm not a hundred percent sure what it's used for, and I kind of doubt it's original to the gym, but it looks like a spot reserved for someone very important. The bleachers, and much of the gym, are all painted a fluorescent green color that matches the shade that has made the current West Vigo gym famous. I kind of doubt this was the color scheme back when the Valley Bobcats played here, but I don't know for sure.
While the slightly raised bleacher section is a little uncommon, it's certainly not unheard of. What you find above one baseline is much more rare. A bulky metal industrial-looking balcony is suspended from the rafters. There are currently no bleachers up there, and if there ever were, there couldn't have been more than 2-3 rows. It's now used as the concession stand for the gym (I'm not sure why, but there's an old wishing well up here as well!). I've come across a few balconies, but never one that sits singularly over one baseline. I've also never found one that is made entirely out of metal and largely held up by supports connecting to the overhead beams. It's a real treat to see in person. The opposite baseline wall features an old stage that at some point was framed in with wood. While I don't love this, they at least had some cool paintings done on the wood, including one of the old high school that has long since been demolished, and the exterior of the gym as well. There are stairs on the sides leading to the backstage area. I'm not sure if the locker rooms were underneath the stage or underneath the bleachers. Today the playing floor is the synthetic plastic kind instead of the old hardwood. It has a parquet design which looks nice and has a few different shades of brown along with the community center logo at half court. I follow the community center's Facebook page, and it looks like this gym gets a ton of use for a variety of sports and events throughout the year which is awesome to see. Old gyms need a purpose in order to survive, and this one certainly has one.
Before I hopped back on I-70 to head home, I drove 3 minutes up the road to see the old Concannon High School one more time. I first stopped by and photographed it back in January of 2025, and it won the award for spookiest school or gym I've ever visited, an honor it still holds to this day. It sits atop a high hill, looking down on the valley and Wabash River below. It's straight out of every Scooby-Doo mystery movie I watched as a kid. I've marked it down as a faded gym as it's falling apart and I've had zero luck finding a contact to let me see inside. With how close it is in proximity to West Terre Haute, I'm shocked they both survived as independent high schools as long as they did. My drive back towards Indy was a quiet one. I listened to John Mellencamp and thought about Terre Haute, West Terre Haute, and legacy of their old high schools and gyms. I stopped by so many, but there were others that have long been lost to history: Glenn, Honey Creek, Garfield, Wiley, and even more that closed in the 20s and 30s. The schools here are scheduled to go through another massive change in a few years as Terre Haute North and South consolidate again and West Vigo expands, but I guess that's just what some people call "progress." I loved driving through the town and seeing all the different types of neighborhoods. Sure some were nicer than others, but that's the case in any old city in Indiana outside of Hamilton County. Whether it be Terre Haute, or West Terre Haute, I hope people take the time to visit for themselves before making judgements. I'm sure glad I did. This was one of the most enjoyable gym-hunting days I've had in a long time.
