Work nearly done on school in Indiana town founded by ex-slave

LYLES STATION, Ind. -- Renovation work is nearly complete on a 1919 school building in Lyles Station, a southern Indiana town founded by a former slave.\nThe school will include a "heritage classroom" where students can spend a day in an old-fashioned classroom, said Stanley Madison, president of the Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corp.\nThe building in the town about 25 miles north of Evansville also will be used as a community center and will have office space than can be rented out to help pay operating and maintenance costs.\nWork on the old school, which was last used in 1958, included renovating the masonry of the building's lower section and rebuilding the upper, wooden section.\nA 400-square-foot addition on the rear will allow for an elevator and accessibility to people with disabilities without marring the building's historical appearance from the front.\nTwo restored outhouses with modern plumbing retain the historical character of the school, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.\nPreservationists raised $1.1 million to restore the school, including a nearly $800,000 grant from a federal rural development program. Work on the project began last summer and an opening ceremony is planned for June 21, Madison said.\nStewart Sebree, a southwestern Indiana coordinator for the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, said the Lyles Station group deserves congratulations for its work.\n"People have been doing something constantly to make sure this project comes to fruition," Sebree told the Evansville Courier & Press for a story Tuesday.\nLyles Station was founded in 1849 in Gibson County by freed Tennessee slave Joshua Lyles. It became a thriving community of black farmers and peaked between 1880 and 1912, when catastrophic flooding of the surrounding Wabash, White and Patoka rivers signaled its decline.\nAt its peak, the town had 55 houses, the elementary school, two churches, two general stores and a lumber mill.