Wabash Township Graded School

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

From the record

“Wabash Township Graded School, also known as Mecca High School and Mecca Grade School, is a historic school building located at Mecca, Indiana. The main section was built in 1901 and expanded in 1910, and is a two-story, Richardsonian Romanesque style red brick building on a raise basement.”
Wikipedia article Wabash Township Graded School, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 47 National Register listings published here for Parke County · listed in 1987 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. S. Montezuma St., Mecca, 47860
When was it listed? June 1987
Category. building
Township. Wabash township
Architectural style. Romanesque Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 87000950 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Wabash Township Graded School: 3 producers, 1 past producer. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
D. Robertson Gravel Company Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Montezuma Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Parke County Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
W.C. Hargis Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Parke County

Storms near this property

18 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Mecca, the town this property stands in, in 18 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 8 thunderstorm wind, 5 flash flood, 3 flood, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
March 2025	Tornado (EF1)	Mecca	$350,000	The tornado began just west of Mecca with sporadic tree damage that continued north of West Pence Street. The tornado crossed Coxville Road before tracking mostly through rural woods and farmland west of McAdams Road. The worst damage occurred where the circulation tracked roughly parallel to McAdams Road towards County Road West 100 South where a small garage was completely destroyed and a 150 year old barn was mostly destroyed. The tornado centerline was just to the west of residences along McAdams Road. Several other residences nearby had tree and pole barn damage. The tornado then moved into farmland before dissipating just north of County Road West 100 South. Maximum winds were estimated at 110 mph.
April 2025	Flash Flood	Mecca	$50,000	Several roads closed due to water flowing over them within the town of Rockville. Total rainfall was around 2.1 inches.
June 2008	Flash Flood	Mecca	$20,000	Flash flooding caused damaged to roadways. The local tavern in Mecca was flooded.
August 2023	Flood	Mecca	$10,000	Thunderstorms produced 4.00 to 5.00 inches of heavy rain in less than 3 hours over a small portion of Parke County in Mecca and south-southeast towards Rosedale. Water came into the basement of a home, which had not happened before.
April 2015	Flash Flood	Mecca	$10,000	Flood damage to a couple of trailers in the town of Mecca due to thunderstorm heavy rainfall. Parke county emergency management estimated the damage at $10,000.
May 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	$10,000	no account filed
June 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	$7,000	Trees and power lines were blown down due to thunderstorm wind gusts.
July 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	$5,000	Trees were reported down across the southern part of the county due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
July 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	$5,000	Numerous trees were reported down along Highway 41 and in the southern end of the county from Rockville southward due to damaging thunderstorm wind gusts.
June 2008	Flash Flood	Mecca	$2,000	County Road 600 West was closed northwest of Mecca due to flash flooding.
July 2013	Flash Flood	Mecca	$1,000	Some inches of flowing water was reported over Highway 41 South due to thunderstorm heavy rainfall.
May 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	$1,000	Trees down on highway
March 2009	Flood	Mecca	-	Extensive flooding of agricultural land occurred along the Wabash River near Lyford, IN, and across the river from Clinton. The river crested 6.1 feet above flood stage at the Clinton river gauge on March 14th with a reading of 24.1 feet. Data is estimated due to missing data.
February 2009	Flood	Mecca	-	Bottomlands and low lying county roads flooded occurred along the Wabash River in Parke County, including in and near Montezuma, due to heavy rain.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	-	A few trees were reported down due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	-	Trees were downed.
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Mecca	-	Trees were blown down in roadways.
April 1996	Hail	Mecca	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Parke County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Mecca Bridge	0.5 miles	1978
Zacke Cox Bridge	3.2 miles	1978
Phillips Bridge	3.3 miles	1978
Sim Smith Bridge	3.3 miles	1978
Melcher Bridge	4.4 miles	1978
Harry Evans Bridge	4.8 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 87000950 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Parke County	All 47 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.