More than 16,000 Iowa farms went under during the well-documented midwestern farming crisis of the 1980s. The farming crisis had wide-ranging effects on rural communities in the state, as local businesses and schools were closing at alarming rates. In 1986, the Boston Globe sent a features writer to the small Taylor County town of Gravity to take an in-depth look at the effects of the farming crisis on a ‘typical’ rural Iowa community.

The population of Gravity had halved between the 1940s and 1980s, and in the article, local residents lamented at the resulting losses: since the town’s heyday, the barber shop, opera house, and hardware stores were gone. The newspaper was no more, and the local bank branch operated only six hours a week. The biggest loss for the community may have been the local school, which closed in 1982.

The three-story brick building was built as a high school in 1929. Classes were reduced when Gravity became part of the Bedford Community School District in the early 1960s, and the school was closed entirely following the 1981-1982 school year. Unlike many former school buildings across the state, the Gravity school has been well-maintained since its closure. Despite the loss of the school, Gravity is home to a post office, community center, American Legion hall, and a new bar and grill restaurant.

Between 1950 and 1960, the state of Iowa lost over 3,000 school districts as part of a widespread consolidation effort across the state. The Taylor County community of Sharpsburg was no exception, as on July 1, 1959, voters in the area voted to consolidate into the school district in Lenox, a larger community 10 miles to the south and west.

While students in grades 7 – 12 were bused to Lenox, the Sharpsburg building continued to operate as an Elementary School following the consolidation. In the early 1960s, the Lenox Community School District proposed a series of bonds to construct a new high school in the city of Lenox. Various versions of the proposal were voted down by district residents eight times before approval was granted to construct and equip a $350,000 high school building in 1966.

The opening of the new high school marked the end of the Sharpsburg school, as area residents could easily be accommodated in the Lenox facilities. Final classes were held in Sharpsburg in 1968, and the school was sold by auction to a local resident for $2,100 in November 1968. Following the sale, the building was the building was used to store small square bales of hay and straw.  The property is owned by the same family and continues to be used for agricultural purposes as private property.