HGB Ep. 495 - Haunted Schools

Moment in Oddity - Tunguska Event

Most of us have seen the movie Armageddon about an asteroid that is threatening to collide with Earth. It's estimated by scientists that asteroids hit the Earth once every 500,000 years. Meteors, on the other hand are very prevalent at approximately 17,000 impacts per year. There was an event back in 1908 that occurred in a remote area of Siberia called the Tunguska Event. It occurred on June 30, just after 7 a.m. in what is now believed to have been a meteoric air burst. 80 million trees were flattened, some were burned and people 60 kilometers away were knocked off their feet. Eyewitnesses described a fireball in the sky. The stony asteroid of about 160-200 feet in size approached the Earth at what was estimated to be approximately 60,000 mph. Although it is classified as an impact event, the asteroid is believed to have exploded around 3 to 6 miles above the Earth, leaving no impact crater. The Tunguska event is the largest impact event in recorded history. Although there was no impact crater, the impact zone was approximately 5 miles across where trees had been scorched and stripped of their branches yet still remained upright. However, trees that were further away from ground zero had been partially scorched and knocked down in directions facing away from the center, thus creating a circular pattern of downed trees. The information of the event that I provided tends to be a common opinion, however there are some who believe Tunguska could be related to extraterrestrial activity. Regardless of origin, the Tunguska event certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Death of Billy the Kid (Suggested by: Sarah Silver)

In the month of July, on the 14th, in 1881, 'Billy the Kid' was shot and killed. As the story goes, Billy showed up at his friend's house at 12:30 a.m.. Unfortunately, his friend was being questioned by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett, at the time. Both Billy and Garrett drew their weapons, but the sheriff shot first, killing 'Billy the Kid'. However over the years other theories have emerged. Some believed that the sheriff shot the wrong man and Billy got away. To add to the mystery decades later, two separate men came to light which many believed to be the famous outlaw. The first man was John Miller, who lived in a small village in New Mexico. When he died, there was found in his possession a pistol with 21 notches on the grip, the same count of deaths attributed to 'Billy the Kid'. The second was a resident of Hico, Texas. His name was Ollie "Brushy Bill" Roberts. 'Brushy Bill' secured an audience with the governor of New Mexico in 1950. He sought a pardon for Billy's murders which failed and Roberts died soon afterwards. These tales are not surprising or unusual given the fact that we have heard similar stories about famous figures some believe to not actually dead. Elvis Presley or Adolf Hitler anyone? Actual literature of the time seemed to centralize around sensationalized newspaper articles and books hammered out quickly to cash in on the event. Researcher and author Jim Montavalli seems to believe that the 1882 biography written by sheriff Garrett, is the most trustworthy account of 'Billy the Kids' death, noting that Garrett deemed the shooting a lucky break. According to Garrett, he and his deputies traveled to Maxwell's ranch and upon arrival, saw some men camped out. They heard one man speaking fluent Spanish (which Billy was known for) and this man started walking towards Maxwell's home. Garrett quietly entered the house and questioned Maxwell who had been sleeping. Maxwell confirmed to the sheriff that Billy had been around the property. Suddenly a man came into view holding a gun and knife asking in Spanish "Who's that?". Sheriff Garrett raised his weapon and shot twice, killing the outlaw. According to the account, a Coroner's Jury held an inquest and determined that indeed, the body was that of 'Billy the Kid'. Unfortunately we will never know for certain if indeed the body was correctly identified. A flood in September of 1904 washed away the grave markers in Fort Sumner's Old Military Cemetery leaving the definitive location of the outlaws body a mystery. 

Haunted Schools

School is scary enough without having ghosts running around the halls. There's all that social pressure and expectation of good grades. A haunted school means that you don't just have to skirt the visible bullies, but the shadow figures lurking in the corners. Join us as we explore these reputedly haunted schools from around the world!

Riverside Park School

We're going to start with a doozie right here in Florida in Jacksonville. This originally was known as Riverside Park School, but today has been dubbed the Devil's School. The original school was just a tiny place built from wood in 1891. After being deemed a fire hazard, it was rebuilt in 1917 out of brick and renamed Riverside Grammar School. It was designed by Rutledge Holmes and was the county's fourth public school. There was an auditorium, offices and a large cafeteria with a fireplace on the first floor and classrooms on the second floor. The school changed names again in 1950 to Annie Lytle Public School in honor of the principal Annie Lytle Housh. The construction of two major interstates, 95 and 10, isolated the school and by 1960, it was closed. For the next ten years it was used as storage and office space. The property was sold in 1980 with a plan to turn it into senior apartments, but that never came to fruition and the building fell into disrepair. A fire in 1995 caved in the auditorium roof. Another effort was made in 1999 to turn the property into condominiums, but public outcry over its historical significance shut that down and it is today a historic landmark. One that was marked with graffiti and dogged with tales of hauntings and satanic worship.

Renovations have been attempted at the school with paint being applied to graffiti and broken windows being replaced. But that doesn't fix the legends connected to the school. Stories claim that a principal of the school had been a cannibal. The principal would call students up to his office and they would never be seen again according to these tales. The details got even darker with claims that the principal had converted a closet into a meat locker and he would hang the children up in there. There are versions that claim that multiple staff members were in on the cannibalism. There is a alternate version with the principal just going berserk and murdering a bunch of kids. 

There was a bad janitor here too who would take students down to the boiler room and boil them alive. One kidnapped student managed to escape when the boiler room exploded. Sounds inspired by Freddie Krueger. There was a fire and several students were killed and these students ghosts haunted the school after that. Then there are stories of Satanic rituals taking place on the school grounds. And that possibly may be the only bit of truth in these legends as much of the graffiti in the school is of Satanic iconography. There are some who believe the fire that happened in 1995 was caused by candles used during one of these rituals. The truth is that the building became a dangerous place when it was abandoned. Whether there are ghosts there or not, its definitely not a place for children anymore.

Tonk Upper Primary Government School

This school is located in India and was established in 1999. It's a co-educational school that teaches in Hindi and provides an upper primary level education. In 2014, three students at the school claimed that they saw the spirit of a young girl in the restroom and that she tried to push them down into the toilets. All three had passed out in the restroom and that is what they claimed caused them to faint. All the students were told to stay home for a week while the school was cleansed of evil spirits. The story claimed that 300 people took part in the cleansing and one of them was a villager that was said to be possessed by the deity Tejaji. The villager said that since it had been two months since a puja had been conducted at the school, the spirit came in. The villagers then agreed to be sure to perform a puja ceremony at least every two months to prevent spirits at the school. A Puja ceremony ranges from a brief daily ritual to an elaborate temple ritual and is observed in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

Lee William’s High School

This school is located in Kingman, Arizona. The high school opened in August of 2012 and is named for Richard Lee Williams who was a former school principal and firefighter who died while fighting the Doxol Disaster in 1973. Eleven firefighters perished in this blaze that is also known as the Kingman Explosion, which happened during a propane transfer from a Doxol railroad car to a storage tank. A hairline crack allowed the propane to leak and static electricity ignited the gas leading to the explosion. The original Kingman High School opened in 1917. In 1993, a north campus was built for upper classmen, while freshman continued at the original old school. Eventually the new north campus became the high school for all students and the old campus was converted into a middle school. The old school was gutted in 2010 to update it and make it a second high school. The only original part remaining besides the outer walls is the gymnasium, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A new auxiliary gym was built. Something else preserved during the renovation was the "Mohave County Union High School 1917" monument sign. 

But something was disturbed during the renovation. There was a pioneer cemetery here with eleven graves, seven coffins and several artifacts. But even before that, the land itself was witness to conflict between pioneers and the indigenous people. The haunting activity was so pronounced that the principal, Steve Elwood, spoke to the Los Angeles Times in 2013. Principal Elwood shared that ghosts of women and men in period clothing from pioneer prairie times have appeared at graduation events on the football field. Students claim to have seen a spirit wearing a bowler hat and long coat lurking in the hallways. There are reports of disembodied footsteps, alarms that go off on their own, lights that flicker and hand dryers that go off on their own too. The spirit of a little girl calls out that she wants to play. The school janitor has probably had the most experiences as the ghosts seem most active at night when he is there alone. He often hears voices in classrooms when no one is in them. He told the LA Times, "Some nights I hear footsteps. Last fall, I was [cleaning] in the girls’ bathroom and I heard someone going into the boys’ lavatory. I hear voices coming from some rooms, little kids mumbling. I can’t really hear what they’re saying. It’s kind of freaky, but it really doesn’t bother me. I just tell them all to go home."

El Paso High School

El Paso High School is the oldest operating high school in El Paso, Texas and is nicknamed "The Lady on the Hill." It was built in 1916 by the Trost & Trost architectural firm in the Greco-Roman style and features a Corinthian porch. Because of the time that it was built, this is a fancy school. The bathrooms and shower rooms are made from marble and porcelain. The main corridor floor is from marble and classroom floors were laid from hard maple. A bronze tablet above the front doors reads, "A Cultivated Mind is the Genius of Democracy: It is the Only Dictator that Free Men Acknowledge and the Only Security that Free Men Desire." The school became a national historic landmark in 1980.

The school is said to be haunted because it was used as an overflow morgue during the Spanish Flu of 1918. Then it served as a hospital for casualties from World War II. The most well known ghost story told about the school involves a picture. This is a class picture taken in 1985 that sits in a trophy case. A woman in white is seen in the center of the picture, somewhat blurry and students and staff claim that this was no one who went to the school or worked there. No one was actually standing in the spot when the picture was taken. And since this was from 1985, it couldn't have been photoshopped. People think this is the spirit of a female student who committed suicide many years ago when she jumped off one of the school’s balconies. Sometimes that spirit appears as a residual haunting jumping from the balcony. A strange mist sometimes fills the halls as well. Sometimes noise is heard as though a group of people are playing basketball in the gym, but there is nobody in there when people check.

West High School

West High School is located in Anchorage , Alaska. The school was established in 1953 on Romig Hill. For a time, Anchorage Community College held classes at the school until they had a campus built in the early 1970s. An earthquake in 1964 destroyed most of the school's second floor and damaged part of the first floor. All that survived on the second floor is the band and choir rooms and nothing else was rebuilt. A science wing was added in 1996 and the school underwent a major renovation in 1998. The auditotium is the largest of any high school in Alaska and holds 2,000 people. It was constructed in 1954. Many rock concerts were hosted here featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Steppenwolf, Ted Nugent, Johnny Cash and the Bee Gees.

A woman in white haunts the auditorium. The theater teacher named David Block told the Anchorage Daily News in 2017, "I've never, ever seen a ghost in there -- I can't say I even believe in ghosts. I haven't ever seen her, but enough people have seen her that I have to believe that something is going on." Block also said that two assistant principals and a security guard saw something white flash through a corridor behind the balcony and that one of those principals was so rattled that he won't talk about the incident. Block continued, "Even I don't like going into the passage behind the balcony." The spirit has been seen among the seats, sometimes walking a hallway, sometimes hiding backstage or down in the basement. People also claim that a former janitor haunts the school still doing his cleaning job. Disembodied footsteps are heard and doors slam.

Mgotjane Primary School 

This primary school is located in Swaziland. It's always the girls' restroom isn't it? Three girls went to the bathroom together and while one of them stood outside of the stall, the other two entered a stall. They both heard a voice screaming at them from down in the toilet that they should stop peeing on it. The girl waiting outside also heard the voice also and asked who was in the stall with the girls. The voice in the toilet got louder and louder and the three girls ran back to their class and reported what happened to a teacher. The teacher was skeptical, as were the parents of the girls. And then other girls in the junior class started reporting the same phenomenon. And that wasn't all. A female teacher left the school in 2013 and refused to return because she claimed that evil spirits had attacked her in the school. Another teacher soon followed, claiming that he felt unsafe at the school.

A teacher named Thulani Dlamini said, "At times it comes as an evil spirit or in the form of a person. One night in June, I was in my room when I overheard footsteps of people approaching my quarters.  My colleagues had once told me of how their sleep was interrupted by a strange spirit and that got me thinking. I immediately reached for my bible and started reading it. As I read my bible I heard one of my colleagues shouting that he was being attacked by four short men who were trying to strangle him. The time was after midnight if I recall correctly. Late that same night, at around 2am the ‘four men’ came to my house. Two entered through the back door and the other two through the main door. Upon entering, two stood at the edge of my bed and the other was by the headboard. They kicked me on my back after they could not sit on me or strangle me. They also tried to press me face down so I couldn’t breathe but they couldn’t. Just before the crack of dawn Mduduzi came knocking pleading to come and spend the night in my room." The school was closed for a few days and a prayer session was held with parents, teachers and students. We're not sure if it did the trick or not, but there haven't been any more recent reports of hauntings.

Majiji Primary School

There is another haunted primary school in Africa. Majiji Primary School is located in Zimbabwe. In 2022, reports came out of this school of paranormal activity. These reports claimed that a goblin was attacking students and staff. The school closed for a while and then a prophetess named Sithembiso Moyo came to the school to conduct a cleansing ceremony. She claimed the goblin was caused by the spirit of a late teacher. Moyo said, "There is a spirit of a male teacher who died at the school. The family of the long deceased teacher failed to perform traditional rituals to cleanse his spirit from the school and his spirit is now troubled. It is today that we get rid of it and make sure that the spirit of the late teacher will be exorcised and tamed so that he rests in peace." We're not sure if it worked or not.

Roy High School

The high school is located in Roy, Utah and was built in 1965. It soon became the county's largest high school and was ranked in the top ten of schools in the nation. And its also one of the most haunted schools in America. There is a female spirit that hangs out in the theater named Mable. Students claim that she moves props and plays with the lighting. There is also the spirit of a floating head that students have claimed watches them when they are in the school alone. There are people who think the head belongs to a boy who was hit by a train when he was walking to school. Another spirit who likes to wear a purple hat has been seen and this spectre tries to get students to follow her. She gives off a malevolent feeling. 

Sophi B. Wright Middle School

It really isn't shocking to hear that a school is haunted in New Orleans. That is where Sophi B. Wright Middle School is located. Middle schools are always scary, but this one even frightened the National Guard. The school was the first all-girls school in the city and was built in 1912 by local architect E.A. Christy in the “Collegiate Gothic” style. Sophie B. Wright spent her life working in education and this started at the age of fourteen when she opened a day school for girls in a spare room at her family's home in 1880. Right before she died in 1912, the Sophie B. Wright High School was opened and named for her. In 2007, the school became a charter school catering to grades 6 to 12. It underwent major renovations in 2016. 

During Hurricane Katrina, the school was evacuated and the National Guard used it as living quarters. They were the first to report strange things happening at the school. Sergeant Robin Hairston reported that she saw the apparition of a girl in a doorway. Specialist Rosales Leanor claimed to see the shadow of a young woman when she was in the bathroom and she ran out in terror. Once these stories came out, staff from the school told stories about paranormal experiences that they had endured as well. One said he opened a closet to find a little girl ghost giggling at him. After the National Guard vacated the school, a chaplain was called in to cleanse the school and apparently it worked.

Yanagawa High School

Yanagawa is a private high school in Japan that was established over 80 years ago. It made news in Japan Today in 2014 when videos from inside the school started going viral. These featured dozens of girls collapsing and it was claimed that a vengeful spirit was causing the issue. One girl started the frenzy when she yelled that she couldn't move her body. Girls near here started yelling that they were paralyzed too. Some screamed, “kill me” or “die.” This behavior continued for a couple of hours. Apparently the girls had gone on a field trip to Mt. Hiko and the Aburagi Dam area, where a headless ghost is said to wander. People thought the girls had somehow brought the ghost back with them. Maybe one of them had been possessed. The school closed for the rest of the day when the frenzy started and students were sent home. It remained closed the following day while authorities investigated. It was eventually blamed on some kind of group hysterics. But many still believe there was a ghost involved, maybe even Hanako-san, a spirit that haunts bathrooms in Japanese schools. 

Parker Roads Elementary

Diane has several family members who live in Florissant, Missouri and this town is home to our next haunted school, Parker Roads Elementary. Apparently, this school was built over an old burying ground. Before the school was built in the 1950s, the state of Missouri ordered Leaf Brown Cemetery to dig up all the bodies in the cemetery and move them to another cemetery, but as usually happens, at least one body was left behind. This is a spirit that is seen only by the children. They claim that she is a blonde woman wearing a black dress with no eyes. She usually hangs out in...you guessed it, the bathrooms.

Westall High School

This school in Melbourne, Australia isn't exactly haunted, but it did experience a weird UFO visit. It was around 11 am on Wednesday April 6, 1966 that students and a teacher from Westall High School reported seeing a UFO. They claimed that it appeared to be saucer-shaped and was a silvery-green color. The craft was twice the size of a standard car at the time and descended, then flew over the school. It then headed to a stand of trees where it disappeared. The stunned students claimed that the UFO reappeared around 20 minutes later and then sped up and flew to the north-west.

Farrar Schoolhouse

The Farrar Schoolhouse is located in Maxwell, Iowa and was dedicated in 1922. A man named C.G. Geddes donated six acres of his farm for the Washington Township Consolidated School District. This school building would combine all the one-room schoolhouses in the area to one building. Some people in the district were not happy with the new schoolhouse because it cost $100,000 and had the modern amenities of electric lights, indoor bathrooms and boiler heating. The school was named for the town of Farrar, which eventually became part of Maxwell. The school closed down in 2002 and sat abandoned for five years. Jim and Nancy Oliver bought the schoolhouse in 2006 and quickly noticed that things were off. They were told when they asked around about hauntings that students had experienced unexplained stuff for years before the school closed. They would watch doors slam themselves and saw shadow figures. Former janitor Bill Webb would find the gym lights on all the time after he would shut them off. He would also hear disembodied footsteps when he was in the school alone.

Nancy Oliver herself saw the ghost of a young boy near the gym. She also heard the giggle of a little girl and looked in a classroom where she heard it coming from and saw the figure of a girl with a long, frilly dress and curly hair. Steven Tracy founded Iowa Paranormal and he said that his team once saw a full-bodied apparition on the third floor near the principal's office. His group thinks that a former principal might be haunting the building even though nobody died on the property. Other experiences had by people investigating the building include balls rolling by themselves in a classroom on the third floor, music has been heard coming from the gym, the spirit of a boy was seen coming out of Room 206 and a nine-foot tall shadow figure was seen on the third floor.

The schoolhouse has been featured on Discovery Channels "My Ghost Story" and "Ghost Stalkers" and been investigated by a number of paranormal celebrities like Johnny Houser, David Rountree and Christopher Booth. John E. L. Tenney said of Farrar, "Farrar flummoxed me, and in doing so, I fell in love with it. It was quiet and loud, inactive and hyperactive. It was cold and hot and warm and spoke and sang and laughed all while standing mute. Lockers slammed, ethereal footsteps ran down hallways, and yet, for all the multitude of experiences and non-experiences, the one thing I came to learn was that this school could teach me something."

Pocatello High School

We covered Pocatello High School in Ep. 49 back in 2015. Pocatello High School is located in Idaho and the city of Pocatello is known as the Gateway to the Northwest. It was founded in 1889. Many of the historic buildings from Pocatello's earliest days still exist today. One of those buildings is Pocatello High School. The school was built in 1892 and named West Side School. The building featured a belfry, gables and arched windows. All grades attended classes in the school. The school was a matter of pride for the city and because of this, two presidents spoke at the school. Those presidents were Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and William Howard Taft in 1908. The school thrived until 1914, when a fire broke out. A boiler had apparently started the fire. Students and teachers rushed to save what they could and the fire department arrived on horse drawn carriages. It was no use. The school was completely destroyed, burned to the ground. The town decided to rebuild the school in the former's footprint. Students met on the lawn and in churches while they waited for the new school to be built. That new school was finished in 1917. The school was expanded in 1939 and a gymnasium was added. Major renovations were done in 1996 and a new gymnasium was completed in 2006. The school would seem to be a typical high school, until one hears about the supernatural occurrences that have been experienced within the school.

A peculiarity of this high school is that a real skeleton was used in science classes. Obviously, the school decided this was not a good idea and they switched to using a plastic skeleton. Apparently, the spirit behind the skeleton was not happy about this switch. Science teachers started finding bones from the real skeleton tucked inside cabinets and in other places within the science department. It was in the 40s or 50s when two girls at the school decided that life for them was over. They made a pact with each other that they would commit suicide. Only one of the girls went through with the plan because the other chickened out. The girl who followed through with the horrible plan, hung herself from her locker. She wore a distinctive perfume that is smelled in the hallways to this day. The most intense scent came from her original locker. It got so bad that her locker was finally removed. Custodial staff sees a young girl's apparition in the hallways at night.

On several occasions, the tinkling of piano keys has been heard coming from the music room at night. When someone goes to investigate, there is never anybody found playing the piano. Toilets flush on their own when no one is in the restrooms. The same thing happens with the lights. They are repeatedly turned on and off and it gets so intense that police are called.  Whispers are heard throughout the school and no one is found in the areas from which the whispering originates.

In 2014, a dark, shadowy figure was captured on a security camera moving from a bench into a bathroom. The lights also flickered in the video and the security alarm went off. The video was widely circulated online and on TV. Some people have debunked the video claiming it is a cobweb or string that has caused the weird anomaly walking around in the video, but that doesn't explain the lights. They have investigated the school several times over seven years and John Brian said that they were doing investigating near the bathroom where the security footage was shot and they had equipment go missing there. A janitor found it in a stairwell up in a window well out of reach of most people. He had gone up there to dust and saw the equipment. Don Contant was a principal at the school and he claimed to witness several paranormal things and heard many stories. He would hear banging on the floor and go over and bang back on the floor and tell the ghosts to stop banging because he had work to do. When A&E brought Ghost Hunters back in 2019, they visited the high school.  

Milton Schoolhouse

The Milton Schoolhouse was covered by us in 2015 on episode 90. In 1904, the Milton Schoolhouse was built. The original parts of the school consisted of four classrooms, restrooms on the ground floor and a boiler room. Two new additions were made to the school in 1930 and 1937. This construction saw the addition of eighteen new classrooms, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria. The school served elementary students and was the main schoolhouse for Alton from 1904 until it was closed in 1986. The Milton School sat abandoned for 4 years after that. In 1990, a man named Gary Levi purchased the building. A warehouse was added to the building in 1993 and he operated the Intaglio/Levay Glass and Giftware company from it until 1998. After the glass company was shut down the building sat dormant again, this time for eleven years. In 2009, it was purchased by Meredith Elston who rented out space in the school to small local businesses. Those businesses included a coffee shop, massage parlor, an aromatherapy store, three photography studios, a pet groomer, an electrician and a party bus company. Doug Mattingly bought the school before the pandemic in 2020. He is renovating the building and attempting to rejuvenate it. They have built out and rented a couple of apartments in the north wing and the south wing is becoming commercial studios. The gym is being set up as a place to host weddings, concerts and receptions. Some commercial tenants have carried over from previous years, including Maeva's Coffee.

What is most commonly associated with the school building; however, is the hauntings. Over the years, there have been reports of many kinds of activities in the schoolhouse. These vary and include footsteps, shadowy figures in a basement stairwell, a shadow seen peeking out of a second floor window, strange noises in the boiler room and other odd things. Patrick Keller mentioned on his Big Seance Podcast featuring this location that the cellar was very creepy. Exploding boilers killed many people. Did someone lose their life here? Or did something happen on the land? The most commonly reported occurrence of activity over the last 60 years revolves around the haunting of the school by a young girl supposedly named Mary and possibly also the spirit of the twisted man who would be her killer. 

According to legend, school had dismissed for the day on a fall afternoon. Everyone had gone home except for a girl who was working on a seasonal bulletin board for her class. A janitor took advantage of the opportunity and dragged her away to a locker room where she was found assaulted and deceased. A few days after this, the body of the janitor was found hanging in the school with a note scrawled near him which simply stated "I did it." The story has no evidence to support it, so it more than likely never happened. But there are things happening here that lend credence to a young girl ghost being in the school. For years following this, children claimed to have encounters with strange figures, hear sounds all around the school and the name Mary floated through the halls like a secret word on the tips of everyone's tongue. When Intaglio Design took over the building, employees claimed to see the apparition of a small girl while working there. They claimed to find glass items shattered near a specific shower stall in the previous locker room. 

There was even one employee who claimed the apparition of the young girl became very attached to her. Her office was located by a stair well outside of the gymnasium. An apparition of a young girl was often seen in her office, out of the corner of her eye in other rooms, and was even reported to have typed on the computer when no one else could have possibly been in her office. Little X's and O's were left behind on the screen. This employee grew attached to the spirit of the little girl. Over the years, she claimed another spirit was in the school as well. This one, she said, was threatening. Other employees felt short of breath and panicked in the area surrounding the girls shower room and even supported the story that they had seen the office employee terrorized by a spirit in a hallway. The woman eventually left her job and refused to return to the building. A few years later, it was shut down again, until the purchase in 2009. Ghost Hunters investigated the property in 2010. They experienced lights turning on and off by themselves and heard disembodied footsteps. They also heard a disembodied voice shush them.

Poasttown Elementary

We covered Poasttown Elementary on episode 228 in 2017. Poasttown started off as a town in Ohio named West Liberty and was platted by Peter Post in 1818. There was another town in Ohio with that name, so in 1848 it was decided to change the name in honor of the founder. Poasttown Elementary got its start on August 18, 1936, when the voters of Madison Township passed a bond issue for a consolidated elementary school at Poasttown to replace the township's one-room school. On September 7, 1937, the new school on Franklin-Trenton Road opened although not all the construction was completed. The school wouldn't be officially dedicated until April 15, 1938. Pupils were assigned to the new school from Upper and Lower Browns Run, Dubbs, Pike and old Poasttown. There were 200 students at that time.The schoolhouse has a history that is relatively peaceful. There is a story that a young girl, named Sarah, fell three floors down a stairwell and was killed by a serious head injury. There doesn't seem to be any evidence backing that story though. The school eventually closed in 2000 and the building is now owned and operated by Darrell and Brenda Whisman. Darrell had attended the elementary school in the 1960s. He soon figured out the school was haunted. Poasttown Elementary’s official motto has become "When you leave, you believe."

One reason that there might be hauntings here could be because the town has known tragedy. There were two train crashes about a mile away from the property, one in 1895 and the other in 1910. Interestingly, both happened on July 4. The 1910 crash was a head-on collision of a passenger train and a freight train that was the worst railroad crash in Butler County’s history. The crash killed 24 people and injured at least 35 and the area where the school would eventually be built was used as a triage area. There was also a great flood in 1913 and six people were killed. Whisman noticed the haunting activity almost immediately after he bought the building in 2004. He said, "We’ll hear a desk being drug across the floor above us. We’ll hear little kids’ footsteps. I’ve heard voices with my own ears when nobody is here but me and my wife. I just can’t explain it."

He had a friend doing construction work one day who let out a loud scream from the top floor. Darrel said, "He runs down to me. He can’t catch his breath and he’s saying, ‘There’s something up there.' I thought maybe a dog or possum got inside. But then he says, 'Dude, it’s a ghost.'" Dozens of paranormal investigators have done ghost hunts at the school. Paranormal investigator Mike Palmer founded the Paranormal Investigators of Northern Kentucky and they have investigated the school twice. Palmer said, "It’s very rare for our instruments to simultaneously go off and do so on command. This place is definitely active." One of his team members has become nauseous when inside the school. The team also captured an EVP of an older man saying, "Russ will eat it." This was after an investigator commented that she felt a critter run past her feet. 

Our listener Angela wrote us, "I am with Big Country Paranormal and we have seen full bodied apparitions, (7 foot tall) a door to the roof open and slam shut,  black floating masses, white mists, voices, strange glowing lights floating through the rooms, and even a gremlin-like creature! It was built on the ground once used to temporarily lay the dead from a fatal train accident. The janitor died in a fire and it is said  a child had a fatal fall near the stairs.  There is so much more to tell you and even an episode of Ghost Brothers was filmed there. I saw a full bodied apparition and a goblin like creature while on my first visit!"

All of these schools have been places for learning. Is it possible that some of the children that were once there as students have returned in the afterlife? Are schools attractive to other spirits? Are these school haunted? That is for you to decide!