About 19 vacant Gary schools like historic Emerson High School, still sit empty, undeveloped and easy prey for vandals.
Some have been sold yet they’re undeveloped. The Gary Housing Authority owns six such vacant schools, including Emerson.
A Saturday fire ripped through Emerson from the third floor, fueled by 20 mph winds. Fire Chief Mark Terry said the school still contained books, reports, and other discarded material.
Terry said firefighters arrived about 9:45 p.m., but the fire had likely already been burning for a while before it broke through the roof.
The city owns five vacant schools and the Gary Community School Corp. still owns eight vacant schools including historic Roosevelt High School, which has round-the-clock security.
Investigators, including the state fire marshal, returned to Emerson Monday and did a thorough search. Besides looking for clues, Terry said they also looked for bodies and brought in a drone to access areas too dangerous for them to go. No bodies were found.
He said they searched an attic area above the third floor where the fire originated.
“That drew our attention,” he said.
Terry said it’s too early to label the cause of the fire and wouldn’t say if incendiary items were found. The building doesn’t have gas or electric service.
The school already loomed as a stark reminder of Gary’s blight. Its lingering smoke stench remained in the air Sunday morning as services got underway at the Progressive Community Church just west on Carolina Street. It adjoins Faith Farms, a nonprofit urban farm.
“I didn’t realize the extent of it until I drove around it after church,” said Pastor Curtis Whittaker. “My hope is it gets demolished. If the wind blows, debris comes by.”
Terry said firefighters responded to a fire at Emerson in June. The fire, in the building’s north end, caved in a roof and destroyed a gymnasium.
In recent years, two schools have been demolished. The city demolished Nobel Elementary in May, and the school district demolished Lew Wallace High School in 2022.
When he began his term in 2020, Mayor Jerome Prince placed unsafe building code citations on several Gary schools. The city ended up purchasing one of the schools, Edison, which it sold to a Hammond trucking company.
The school district also sold Dunbar-Pulaski school to a Chicago-area food company, but neighbors have opposed its rezone which has stalled in the city council.
Deputy Mayor Trent McCain said Monday the city doesn’t intend to serve violation notices on the GHA.
“The administration is satisfied that the Housing Authority is going through the proper channels that will allow it to access federal funds for the demolition of Emerson and other former school sites it owns,” McCain said.
The GHA didn’t respond with its plans for its buildings. Earlier, officials said they hoped to develop affordable housing at the school sites.
Earlier this year, firefighters put out a blaze at Horace Mann High School, 525 Garfield St. Terry said the worst school blaze in his memory was at Mann in 2017 when its auditorium caught on fire.
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