The 2023-2024 Alexandria-Monroe Junior/Senior High School gym renovations are completed and amazing! These updates stirred up many memories of the gym in the original downtown Alexandria High School building.
Local public school locations have evolved to meet the society’s and the community’s ever-changing needs.
A 1915 Alexandria Times-Tribune article noted that before 1897, the original high school students attended the Central School. The article pointed out that the original school was a frame-structured building that included elementary grades 1-8. That all-purpose school building was located on the northwest corner of Washington and West Streets, with the entrance facing south on Washington Street.
Note: The museum has a large panoramic picture of the Central School students and faculty who attended that building in 1913.
Clarke (on the west side) and Thomlinson (on the south side) Elementary Schools were built around 1896, and a new high school was later completed alongside the Central School location on Washington and West Streets.
In 1925, the Alexandria High School gym was built. According to that year’s high school Spectrum yearbook, the gym could seat “…980 at games, counting the balcony.” An additional 150 seats could be added to the stage as needed. “At plays and entertainments, the gym floor is filled with seats so that 1300 people may easily be accommodated.”
The first play at that gym was the senior play “The Colonel’s Maid.” The gym’s innovation included boys’ and girls’ showers in an area located near the gym.
In 1955, the Alexandria school corporation combined the former Clarke and Thomlinson schools into one facility: The Alexandria Elementary School. That school was later renamed Marie Thurston Elementary after its first principal and long-time local educator.
In 1961, the Alexandria-Monroe High School (AMHS) was built to improve the student facilities at its new 11th Street location. Once used by the high school football team, the much-maligned Athletic Field (located on the northeast corner of Indiana Hwy 9 and East Washington/Bethel Ave) was replaced with a new field at this new south side location. The former downtown high school became Alexandria Junior High School that same year.
Alexandria Junior High School moved to 11th Street when the new high school, built in 1977 at 1 Burden Court on the south side of town, moved to its new location. A few former students recall helping to install the bleachers in that gym. That new high school was dedicated on January 15, 1978.
The former downtown school building became the Alexandria Community Center until a tragic fire destroyed it in 1978.
Alexandria-Monroe Junior/Senior High School was formed when the Junior and Senior High School students merged and moved to the 1 Burden Court location. All public elementary schools eventually merged and moved to their current 11th Street location to form Alexandria-Monroe Elementary School (AMES).
