Abandoned Catholic School With the Classrooms Still Set Up and a Gym Full of Trophies

This Catholic school closed around 2020 because of low attendance and financial hardship, and a lot of it was left in place. Trophies, school supplies, musical instruments and gym clothes were all still inside. The exact location stays off this page.

We came in through a window. The part that made the video was at the end, a gym with skylights, six hoops and shelves of trophies that nobody had cleared out.

What we found

The first room was a music room. There was a little drum, CDs, VHS tapes, tape decks, records and an entire music book. A grand piano lay on its side. We tried the pianos and one made sound, though some of the keys were broken. A second music room had more instruments, and photos of students and teachers on the wall were dated 2006 and 2007.

The library had Valentine’s Day decorations, and I asked whether the place went bando around then. Shelves held history VHS tapes on the state capitals, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and a stack of National Geographic for little kids. There was a record player, headphones, a typewriter and a player for tapes.

The science room had seashells, posters on lab safety and working with acids, and a fridge with black mold in it. We found jars of borax, glycerin and aluminum sulfate, plus sodium hydroxide, glycine and dextrose. There was a periodic table on the wall. I learned so much about it in school and I don’t remember anything.

Class dates were confusing. Boards in the rooms said class of 2018, class of 2025 and class of 2012. I took the 2025 one for someone trolling, since the school closed years before. Coat hooks lined a hallway, and the math room had a Holy Bible in it. A note read “Take anything out of your desk that you want. Pick up your poster and packet of books from me. Be good,” with a sad face. I think that was the day they closed, but that is my guess.

The water damage upstairs made the decay smell bad. An English room had a world map someone had cut up, and an art room had a magazine dated 2001. Some chalkboards were made of glass, which I did not know was a thing. Downstairs there was a class of 1991 sign, a mission statement on a podium, a prayer wall and a Children’s Way of the Cross. A December calendar had no year on it, a sign said 2019, and papers dated 2021 and 2022 made me wonder if it closed because of COVID. Near the homework club a sign read “We’re building a better world, one student at a time.”

Then the lower level, where the power was on. There were murals, a rainbow down a staircase, cans of paint, a box of rewards that included a sticky hand, and Connect toys.

The gym was the best part. Trophies filled the shelves, some for basketball and some for band, and there was fake money all over the school. The floor was warped from water damage and ready to cave in. A concession stand had a price list with Gatorade at $2 and water, coffee, soda, popcorn and candy at $1. We also saw a catwalk above the gym, a safe that had been emptied, track and field shirts and a hockey stick.

Why places like this end up empty

The reasons given for this school, low attendance and financial hardship, match what one archdiocese said in January 2020 when it announced it would close five schools at the end of that school year. Its stated reasons were low enrollment and financial difficulties.

The numbers were specific. One school had lost 97 students over three years and faced a $500,000 deficit that fundraising did not cover. Another had lost 70 students over four years and faced a $575,000 deficit when outside donors did not step forward. That is a pattern in one archdiocese, not a statement about this building.

The article does not say what happened to the buildings or what was in them. In this one, the answer was that nobody emptied it.