(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Now Entering" is heading back to the third town ever featured in the series, Knightstown, Indiana.

Today we step back inside the iconic Hoosier Gym.

But Knightstown is not just a gym with a zip code.

This small town is packed with stories, from its extraordinary academy building to the original national highway.

Today, we celebrate the hard work shaping this small town's bright future.

You're Now Entering Knightstown.

(upbeat music) "Now Entering Knightstown" is sponsored by Montgomery Creek Ranch, Citizens State Bank, Reach Networks, Henry County Community Foundation, the Hoosier Gym, with additional support from the National Insurance Agency, Dr.

Shaneyfelt Vision Care, Knightstown Locker, First Integrity REMAX, and from viewers like you.

Thank you.

If you lived in America in the early 19th century, travel outside your town was pretty rough.

Roads were typically dirt paths carved in the earth by previous wagons, and the worn grooves in the road would often lead to stuck wagons and broken wheels, and that was with good weather.

This also meant if you happened to be a farmer who lived far away from the city well, you were sometimes a good week away from the nearest town.

So when the United States government authorized the first federally funded highway, it was a big deal.

Today, we learn about a surveyor for America's first federally funded highway and the namesake of Knightstown, Indiana, Jonathan Knight.

Jonathan Knight was a brilliant mathematician, engineer, and Quaker, but he was not the founder of Knightstown.

So how did Knightstown get his name?

For that, we have to go back.

Born in 1787 to Abel and Anna Knight in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Jonathan Knight grew up at a time when America was newly formed and still learning how this whole governing a free nation thing worked.

Jonathan was taught at common schools by his own father who was a teacher.

And by the time Jonathan was a young man, he'd become a skilled surveyor.

For those who don't know, a land surveyor works with knowledge of land elements, geometry, engineering, meteorology, and more.

Basically, if you want to build, let's say, a highway, you'd have to be familiar with the engineering needs of those building the road.

You need to know how to tell if the land is safe to construct and most importantly, you have to be able to accurately measure distances using chains.

Most men at the time had at least basic knowledge of how to measure and survey land, especially farmers or homesteaders who needed that information on the regular.

And in the early 1800s, many people were heading west and starting their own homesteads in a brand new state that totally had no people whatsoever, Indiana.

Don't worry about where the name comes from.

Most men knew basic surveying, but not all were hired by the US government to help build the nation's first federally funded highway, the one we now call Route 40, the main street of America.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson signed an act requesting the national road.

And then in March of 1825, Congress authorized an expansion of the road from Ohio to St.

Louis, and they could think of no one better to be their commissioner than Jonathan Knight.

Jonathan was given the mission to make sure that this new road connected all the state capitals with as straight a line as possible.

It took Jonathan Knight 30 days to travel to Indianapolis, and he noted there were no official towns from Centreville to Indy.

But there was a community by the name of West Liberty.

Now, you might be thinking, if Knight didn't found Knightstown, then who did?

Well, that title belongs to a man named Waitsell Carey.

Waitsell was also born in Pennsylvania but he grew up in Cincinnati with a father who was a political figure.

Waitsell had been a teamster in the War of 1812 and lived in Springfield, Ohio before making his way to Indiana, where he and his brother established a sawmill in West Liberty.

Before owning the property that was to be Knightstown, he scouted land near the Big Blue River, found a bluff safely out of the floodplain, and in August of 1821, bought 80 acres for $1.25 each.

That land became Knightstown.

Then the people of West Liberty slowly migrated into the new town.

If Waitsell was the founder of Knightstown, how did it get named after Jonathan Knight?

Well, the truth is, historians aren't really sure yet.

There's no direct written communication between the two men and little indication that they even knew each other.

But Carey most likely knew Knight, not only because Waitsell named a town after Knight, but because the national road that Jonathan was surveying went directly through Waitsell's 80 acres.

But the main street of America might not have gone through Knightstown at all.

Knight, while surveying the national road, had been under political pressure from Dayton and Newark to change the route for their economic interests.

A paved national road meant a lot of new homesteaders moving through your town, and that meant money.

But whatever these politicians promised Knight, he refused.

Jonathan was dedicated to building the national road as a straight line from Zanesville to Columbus, to Indianapolis, and finally to Vandalia.

Knight completed the survey in 1827, and the road was completed in 1832.

Afterwards, Knight went on to become one of the premier civil engineers of Henry County.

He invented an important train wheel, was elected into office, and well, it's no wonder Waitsell admired the man enough to name his own town after him.

The main street of America mostly exists in spirit today, as it's been rerouted and redone over the many years since its completion, although some sections of the original highway that Jonathan Knight helped to survey still exist today.

The fact that the national road was built on Waitsell's property is the reason that Knightstown was able to build up into a prosperous town, and it makes Knightstown a part of this fascinating piece of American history.

- The gym was built in 1921.

The people of Knightstown pitched in their pennies and built it for about $19,000.

At the time, they were paying their ball games above the drug store in an attic.

They called it Bells Hall.

And they also did some of their games in the basement of the Presbyterian Church.

The game of basketball was just catching on as a great winter activity and in schools around the state of Indiana.

You know, the game came to Indiana in 1894, a YMCA in Crawfordsville, and the guy who brought the game here was a underling of Dr.

Naismith who invented the game in 1891.

So it made an appearance in Indiana very early on.

And Naismith was quoted later when he visited the state of Indiana and saw the finals at Hinkle Fieldhouse.

He said, "Wow.

"You know, I know I invented the game in Massachusetts, "but it was made for Indiana."

(upbeat music) Peg Mayhill, her and her husband had the local weekly newspaper, and she was very historically minded.

Everyone saw in central Indiana the newspaper said, "We're looking for gyms to do this movie 'Hoosiers.'"

And she's the one that contacted them.

And they told her initially, "Ah, sorry, ma'am, "I think we've got the gyms already picked out."

But her argument to them was, "Well, how do you know you don't want to use our gym?

"You've not seen it."

And she was very persistent.

She kept calling them and calling them.

And apparently they were nice folks.

And they, you know, they finally decided, you know, she's not gonna leave us alone until we go look at her gym.

And she got them here, and the rest is history.

(bright music) The movie came out in '86.

It was filmed here in '85.

They were here a month.

It was very exciting.

Lots of activity.

There were food trucks outside here, and lots of people mingling, busloads of kids who came to be extras from area school corporations, just lots of activity and hustle and bustle.

The local chamber even sold a t-shirt, you know, welcome to Knightstown.

And so really exciting time, but of course in the gym, it was pretty much confined and relegated to the movie itself.

When they filmed here, this floor was dull and faded.

They needed plumbing and electrical work, the roof leaked.

It was perfect for their purposes, but it needed a lot of work.

They hadn't taken really great care of the gym once it stopped being the high school gym in '66, so it needed a lot of work.

So once the movie was done, it was still locked up and in disrepair until the 1990s, and that's when we got funding to open it back up, do all the repairs, and turn it in basically as a community center.

That was the idea.

We have all kinds of events here.

In fact, coming up here in a couple weeks, we're having a political forum for candidates for our local town board.

It's used for all kinds of events locally.

But the emphasis really is the tourism.

But it's just unbelievable when people come in and out and in and out and you're giving tours and entertaining them.

But I can safely say 30, 40,000 at least every year.

And that includes visitors to our basketball games.

We have almost 80 regulation varsity high school basketball games from teams around the country.

It really converts and turns a lot of the youngsters into fans of the movie that have never seen it before.

And it really makes our community, brings people to our town.

They visit our restaurants, they visit our antique shops, and it really is very helpful for our community.

- My name is Linda Glenn.

I've lived in Knightstown my whole life.

And I continue to work as a volunteer.

The Knightstown Library was begun in 1902 by the Women's Club of Knightstown.

They began to secure signatures of taxpayers so they could take that list to the town council.

In November 1904, the women started a fundraiser and elected a board, and they secured a room in which to put the books and soon those shelves started becoming full.

So in 1911, they had outgrown that space.

And Andrew Carnegie proposed to donate $10,000 if the town could come up with a lot in order to build.

They secured enough money to buy the current lot where the building still sits at Main and Franklin Streets.

The building was finished and dedicated on Thanksgiving Day 1912.

Until our renovations, the library had pretty much stayed the same.

In 2019, the plan to update began again.

And then in February 2023, we did receive a government grant.

So with this, we put in an elevator, two new handicap restrooms, new paint, and it has refreshed the whole library a lot.

We were worried where we were going to house all of the books and equipment when we had to move out for the construction to begin.

So the school administration was kind enough to lend us a space at the middle school here.

Then September 16th, 2025, we were ready to move back in.

And family and friends came and they moved us all back in to the library with all the books stacked in the boxes.

Well, the library serves the community and patrons.

And they offer the uses of computers, fax machines, copy machines, information, and their programs are there for crafting, storytelling, and reading.

I love Knightstown.

I've lived here all my life.

And there's nothing more gratifying to me than to have people come to me and say, "Thank you for all your service "and all that you do for the town of Knightstown."

(bright music) - [Narrator] "Now Entering Knightstown" will be right back, but first a few words from our sponsors.

- [Announcer] Montgomery Creek Ranch offers a breathtaking backdrop for weddings and events.

Spanning 160 acres of rolling hills and wildflowers, it features an event farm for 250 guests and a 6,000 square foot lodge for luxury accommodations in Knightstown, just off I-70.

Citizen State Bank.

Local people, lasting relationships, and 150 years of commitment to our communities.

It's about more than banking.

It's about people.

More at cbsin.com.

Member FDIC.

Support comes from Reach Networks, a technology partner serving clients in finance, healthcare, logistics, and the Department of Defense with data center, AI, and cybersecurity solutions.

Reach Networks is headquartered right in Henry County.

More information is at reach-networks.com.

Since 1985, donors have partnered with Henry County Community Foundation to create meaningful change by opening doors of opportunity and enriching lives across Henry County.

The foundation connects with caring individuals and families committed to making Henry County a vibrant place to call home.

The Hoosier Gym located in Knightstown, Indiana, is a bucket list destination for "Hoosiers" movie fans.

Today, the Hoosier Gym hosts over 100 basketball games every season and welcomes visitors from around the world to the historic gym and museum.

Learn more at thehoosiergym.com.

- [Narrator] Thank you to our sponsors.

Now let's get back to Knightstown.

(upbeat music) (bright music) - I'm Sarah Ward, and I'm president of the Academy Board.

It's a very unusual building.

It's one of the outstanding parts of the town.

It's always been here, it seems, to all of us.

My grandmother was one of the six young ladies in the first class that graduated in 1877.

Then my mother and father graduated from here, and then I graduated from here.

The academy was started in 1876.

The people had different school buildings around the town, and finally they said, "We want to have a really nice building."

And so as a result, we got the academy.

They enticed John I. Morrison from Salem, Indiana to come up and be the president and get the ball rolling.

He was a very well-known educator.

He had started a couple of schools for young people in Salem.

He very much believed that women should be educated.

He taught at IU in its beginning years.

We believe that John Morrison got the idea to put a globe and a telescope on the top of the school building.

And then we had, as the treasurer, Dayton Heritage.

He was in the furniture business, retailer.

He had come from Cambridge City.

And we have learned that he was a very accomplished poker player.

Whether he said it in jest or whether he was serious, he pointed out that there was not a brick in the lovely house he built here that had not been paid for by his poker winnings.

And then of course, we had as the principal, Charles Hewitt.

He was known as a good educator and a disciplinarian.

Originally, on the third floor of the academy, they had just three large rooms.

They did some basketball games.

They did some dance and that kind of activity.

And then after a few years, some of the people got scared and they said, "That's just too high.

"We shouldn't have anybody up there."

So when I went to school there, I was in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade on the second floor, and I never heard of anyone who ever sneaked up to see the third floor.

So the only ones who got to go up there were the boys who put the star on the outside for Christmas time.

- That was put up in the '50s by the custodians of the high school.

And that was Belvin Durham, Vic Wing, and Ralph Moffitt.

The three of them built it in the basement of the academy and then hung it up every Christmas, hung it between the globe and the telescope.

It became a visual spot for pilots, the academy alone, because of the globe and the telescope, but it was a navigation point, especially flying east or west.

They knew exactly where they were.

- In 1976, there was concern by citizens in the town.

They didn't believe that they were keeping the academy building in good repair, so they went to the school board and they offered to pay for a new roof.

It was unfortunate the town was sort of divided into two parts.

The younger people were convinced they must have a new building for the elementary.

The older people knew that they had had a good education at the academy, so they wanted to keep the building.

From about 1980 to 1990, the school board said to the people who wanted to save the building, "Okay, if you can save it, we'll let you have the building.

"We're going to go ahead and build our elementary school," which they did on the northern part of the town.

So finally, Peg and Tom Mayhill gave $6,000 to Indiana landmarks in Indianapolis, and finally the A&D apartment group from Michigan took it and they developed it.

And so all of the classrooms became apartments.

They ended up with 38 apartments Everything we thought was going and everybody was happy.

They had the new school they wanted, and we had the academy saved.

And then all of a sudden, the A&D broke the contract and returned it.

We didn't know what we were going to do.

So we asked Joe and Denise Peacock, who were entrepreneurs here in town, if they would go up and see if we could get the school.

They made several trips up and talked to them and negotiated, and finally for $612,000, they were able to get the building.

And that's where we are today.

It's serving an important need for a lot of people, and we're very pleased with how we've updated, and do our best to keep it in good repair.

It's an ongoing saving of the academy.

We hope it's been saved for the last time.

- My name is Bill Gorman, and I've lived here in Knightstown most of my life.

I help with the Chamber of Commerce.

I'm a volunteer there.

They gave me a free membership to the Chamber one year, and the next year I was the president.

So we do some festivals.

We do the Jubilee Days, which we have done since the 1940s, so, not me personally.

We do community events and take care of things around town.

(bright music) Well, Jubilee Day started sometime in the 1940s or before, and then it was called the Corn Carnival in 1940, and sometime after that it changed to Jubilee Days.

Well, during COVID, a lot of the small carnivals, which we use here, went out of business.

They just simply couldn't afford to pay expenses and not have income, obviously.

So we tried and tried and tried for several years to find a new carnival company to no avail.

And finally we found one.

And the local people were really wanting it to come back because it is a tradition.

So we finally found a company from Northern Indiana, and they've been here since 2023 or four now, and Jubilee Days is back.

(upbeat music) They have a Jubilee Days queen and princess contest, which is pretty cool.

They have high school kids that vie for the queen and princess.

They also have a senior queen this year.

We have a baby contest where they take the little babies and, you know, the cutest baby, the chubbiest baby.

All different things.

The parents love it, the grandparents love it, and the kids are so cute.

So that's a great event.

Right now, there's a concert going on uptown by a local lady.

The carnival itself, rides and music and lots of food that you shouldn't eat.

Then they just had a parade where everybody throws candy to the crowd and there was a huge crowd watching.

So lots of little events like this.

It's like a homecoming, really.

People come back just for Jubilee Days just to meet with their old friends.

And the kids love it because, you know, there's junk food and rides, so what's better than that?

And I think a lot of local people, it's a nostalgic thing.

They come back, they see their old friends.

Maybe this is the only time all year they see them.

Well, just that it's fun and I'm glad we have it back and I hope we can sustain it for a long time.

(upbeat music) - 13 years ago when I started as superintendent, the first task that our school board gave me was to figure out how that we could get out of some of the aging schools and into a one campus facility because right now we're on three different locations throughout the community.

So a campus that now houses Knightstown Intermediate School that was once Knightstown High School will be closed down, which is kind of sad.

It has a great history and means a whole lot to a whole lot of people in the community.

But the efficiency of that building has deteriorated quite a bit.

So to make sure that we are as responsible economic stewards as we can be with taxpayer dollars, we've had to invest this money for longevity and the overall increase of efficiencies, but also more importantly, because it's going to provide so many additional opportunities for our kids, because once that elementary school is built out on our one campus, we're gonna have the opportunity to turn that facility into an early childhood center, which is a huge need for communities and communities around us.

So we want to be able to meet the needs for preschool education as far as we can into Henry County and increase opportunities and choices for parents.

- I grew up in Knightstown in a lot of ways as a teenager.

Yeah, Knightstown was bustling, especially when I was younger.

I can remember the G2 Cafe, I remember going there.

Well, it's changed.

We went through, you know, some difficult times in the late '70s, '80s, '90s.

But Knightstown has really come back a lot since then.

We have a very active downtown.

We have a lot of good businesses We have Los Charros Mexican Grill.

That's been a very successful addition to Knightstown.

And we have a number of great businesses downtown.

You know, we are always, of course, looking for new businesses.

Maybe one or two spots downtown that a new business could join.

The Redevelopment Commission was involved with the development of Rivers Edge.

So Rivers Edge is a community next to the academy that is a town home community that's low maintenance.

Many of us are older and looking for low maintenance life.

And so yeah, it's a really nice development.

We're seeing growth.

Over the last several years, Knightstown has grown kind of an average of 1-2%.

So it's, you know, we're not huge, but we do continue to grow, and we like that, you know, we're retaining residents, but also adding a few.

I really love Knightstown partially because I grew up here, right?

I grew up nearby and spent my teenage years here.

We raised our family.

You know, the people are very welcoming.

- Well, I love Knightstown.

I've lived here all my life.

With this town, neighbors help neighbors.

- I love Knightstown because it's home.

I just cannot imagine that there's a better place for my children to grow up and learn all of the skills and values that they're going to need to be successful in life.

- I love Knightstown because it's been very, it's just been so hospitable to myself.

I was an outsider when I came in '79, and it's just been very, very accommodating to me.

We've been very happy here.

We just met so many friends that are friends for life, and it's just a beautiful little town with lots of beautiful people.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Now Entering Knightstown" is sponsored by Montgomery Creek Ranch, Citizens State Bank, Reach Networks, Henry County Community Foundation, the Hoosier Gym, with additional support from the National Insurance Agency, Dr.

Shaneyfelt Vision Care, Knightstown Locker, First Integrity REMAX, and from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright music)