HGB Ep. 398 - Fort McClellan

Moment in Oddity - Cave of the Crystals

The Cave of the Crystals is also known as Giant Crystal Cave and is located Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico. This is connected to the Naica Mine there and is a chamber of limestone with giant selenite crystals jutting out in all directions. And when we say giant, we mean giant. The largest one has been measured to a length of over 37 feet. These crystals were formed because there is an underground magma chamber below the cave that heated water full of sulfide ions, then mixed with cooled oxygenated water, gypsum crystals formed and then the temperature in the cave dropped and over 500,000 years, these crystals grew. The cave is a fairly recent discovery. Two brothers, Pedro and Juan Sanchez, discovered it in April of 2000 when they were drilling in the mine. The cave has been hard to explore because it is intensely hot in the chamber. Scientists designed their own exploration suits with reservoirs of cold water and ice that gave them about 30 minutes at a time of exploration. They explored the cave in detail in 2006. The cave was re-flooded in 2015 and can no longer be explored, but the crystals might grow more because the water is rich in the minerals needed to do that. A cave full of giant crystals, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Son of Sam Arrested

In the month of August, on the 10th, in 1977, David Berkowitz, also known as the Son of Sam, was arrested. Berkowitz had terrorized the people of New York City for over a year, starting on Christmas Eve in 1975 when he nearly stabbed to death a fifteen-year-old girl named Michelle Forman. He continued to fall deeper into paranoid schizophrenia and claimed that his neighbor's German Shepherd was talking to him, as were other neighborhood dogs. Berkowitz was convinced the dogs were possessed by demons as were his neighbors. The dogs ordered him to kill attractive young women. He moved to a new apartment with a neighbor named Sam Carr who had a black Labrador that also told Berkowitz to kill. When Berkowitz started referring to himself as the Son of Sam, he was referring to Sam Carr. His killing rampage left 6 people dead and 7 others wounded. He plead guilty to eight shootings and was sentenced to six life sentences, which he continues to serve at Shawangunk Correctional Facility. Berkowitz later claimed that he was part of a violent Satanic cult and that he had been helped with some of the murders, which were rituals. No evidence of this was ever proven and Berkowitz now claims to be a Christian.

Fort McClellan (Suggested by and Research Assistance from Jules Schlosser)

Fort McClellan is located in Anniston, Alabama at the foothills of the magical Appalachian Mountains. We've always found these mountains to harbor a supernatural energy and that seems to be the case here at the Fort, which closed in 1999. The Fort had a strong presence during World War II, training half a million troops and was home to the Women's Army Corps. Several people have died on the former base, including several foreign prisoners of war who are buried on the property, and ghost stories abound. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Fort McClellan!

The town of Anniston was originally founded as a company town for the Woodstock Iron Company in 1872. This area had many advantages for manufacturing with endless supplies of coal and timber and railroad lines branching out into all directions. Furnace No. 1 was started in 1873 rising forty-three feet high. Furnace No. 2 was completed in 1879 with Furnace No. 3 and 4 being added quickly thereafter. The Brown Hematite Woodstock ores produced were considered the best and strongest iron for all purposes, made in the South. By 1883, Woodstock was renamed Anniston and opened to the public and grew to a population of 10,000. The Spanish–American War ended in 1898, but there were concerns that hostilities would erupt once again and the government felt they needed a military reserve force in Alabama. Because of its great location, Anniston was chosen to establish Camp Shipp.

Camp Shipp was named in honor of Lt. William E. Shipp who had bravely led his troops in a charge in the Battle of San Juan Hill and was killed during the skirmish. An artillery range was placed on the nearby Blue Mountain and 10,000 troops of the 3rd Alabama Volunteer Infantry were stationed here by October 1898. An influenza epidemic turned parts of Camp Shipp into a makeshift hospital for a time. There was no action for the camp and by March of 1899 the post was phased out. And that was it for a decade. The Choccolocco Mountain range of the Appalachians was such a great area for training though that in 1912 Alabama's Third District congressman Henry D. Clayton Jr. petitioned the Department of War to set up a new military training facility in Anniston. As a trial run, 20,000 National Guardsmen were sent for artillery training. The government was so pleased with the results that they purchased 18,952 acres in March of 1917 and it was perfect timing because America would declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917. 

Camp McClellan was officially established on July 18, 1917 and named in honor of Major General George B. McClellan, General-in-Chief of the Union Army from 1861 to 1862. The duty of the base was to quickly get men ready to fight in World War I. For this reason, all the early buildings were constructed from wood and rows of wooden floored tents were used to house the troops. This hasty building didn't mean that few buildings were erected. Quite the opposite. There were 1,500 buildings with 118 of them alone reserved for the base hospital. A terminal piece of the railroad was extended right into the camp. Men arrived from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware and Washington, D.C. These men would become the 29th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General Charles G. Morton, and they would fight in France. On a side note about the 29th Infantry Division, they would be part of the first Allied assault on Normandy on D-Day during World War II and would be one of the 36 divisions recognized as liberating units because they liberated Nazi Concentration Camps. And Fort McClellan is where they were created.

There were other troops here as well including the 157th Depot Brigade, the 11th and 12th Training Battalions, the 6th Division, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Development Regiments and the 1st Separate Negro Company of Maryland. This latter group would later be absorbed into the 372nd Infantry Regiment and fight in the Champagne region of France during World War I. This was a black regiment with white officers. The unit was extremely well decorated. Urbane F. Bass was their black medical officer who was killed in action on October 6, 1918, and received the Distinguished Service Cross. After the war, most mobilization camps like Camp McClellan were closed, but it managed to make it onto the "caretaker status" list. This led to Congress approving funds to update the buildings at the camp in 1926 and these structures included barracks, a headquarters, officer quarters and a central hospital. On July 1, 1929, the post was officially designated as Fort McClellan and it would be permanent. 

In 1933, more funds were allocated and the Fort McClellan Army Airfield was built along with a radio facility featuring the call letters WUR and this mostly was used for Morse-code communications. Additional buildings were added and these featured Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. Troops that trained here were the Alabama Army National Guard, the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps, the Army 22nd Infantry Regiment and District "D" of the Civilian Conservation Corps. This group was known as the CCC and it was a voluntary public work relief program for the unemployed during the Great Depression. It was advertised as "a young man's opportunity for work, play, study and health." This was a key part of Roosevelt's New Deal. Towards the end of 1940, the 27th Infantry Division of the New York National Guard was activated and sent to Fort McClellan. A year later, these men would be deployed to the Pacific Theater of Operations because America had entered World War II.

The new war prompted more construction at the base and any remaining buildings from the previous war were upgraded. The base also acquired more land, buying part of the Talladega National Forest and growing to over 42,000 acres. Fort McClellan was now able to house up to 50,000 troops. Hundreds of hutments were set up for those troops and as creature comforts, five theaters and an amphitheater were built. A firing range for mortars, artillery and tanks was set up and called Morrisville Maneuvering Area. That name was later changed to Pelham Range to honor a local hero named John Pelham, from the American Civil War. During World War II, 500,000 men were trained here and the basic training included handling live artillery fire, fighting from foxholes and hiding from tanks. Fort McClellan became unique among bases as it welcomed two detachments of the Women's Army Corps, also known as WAC. And they also trained special black troops that were sent to fight in Italy.

Fort McClellan had another designation during World War II and that was prisoner of war camp. This part of the base was built in 1943 and could house 3,000 prisoners. Unlike previous wars that featured harsh conditions for prisoners-of-war, the Prison Internment Camp here was really quite nice. The 1929 Geneva Conventions laid out rules for prisoners-of-war. There were plenty of provisions and there was lots of recreation. One German prisoner found the prison so comfortable that he wrote home and described Fort McClellan as a "golden cage." And as hard as it may be to believe, the nearby residents were having to ration food, so they began to resent how good the prisoners had it at the base. There were prisoners who made a run for it and did attempt to escape and they were killed. There is a cemetery here for the dead prisoners that includes 3 Italians and 26 Germans. Fort McClellan had 2,546 prisoners in total.

When the war was over, Fort McClellan trained occupation forces and then became a Recruit Training Center. By 1947, the base was moved to inactive status with just a small group left behind to maintain everything. A new war, the Korean War, would breathe new life into Fort McClellan and it was once again used for National Guard training. More funds brought more restoration and Brigadier General Theodore R. Wessels became the Commander and was nicknamed the "Father of the New Fort McClellan." A Chemical Corps would be formed and trained here. The training was made up of basic training for 8 weeks and then 8 weeks of chemical warfare training. Operation Top Hat was started in 1953 and the highly secretive operation tested nerve agents, biological warfare and sulfur mustard gas. The Chemical Corps name would change in the 1960s and be expanded with the U.S. Army Combat Development Command Chemical Biological-Radiological Agency moving to Fort McClellan. One can imagine that having all this chemical stuff on the base would not be a good thing and that will prove to be true when the base is closed. As a matter of fact, H.R. 3666 was introduced in Congress in 2017 and was called The Fort McClellan Health Registry Act. This was to register people exposed to chemical agents during their military service at Fort McClellan.

A Military Police Corps was trained at the base in the 1970s. Around the same time, the WAC that had Fort McClellan as its beginning and home, would officially be disestablished and its flag retired. The last director of the Women's Army Corps, General Mary E, Clarke, became the first female Commanding General to command any major U.S. Army installation and that was at Fort McClellan. She was in charge from 1978 to 1980. So this was a very important place in women's history. During the Vietnam War, the base would again train men for war. This training would be deactivated in 1970. A small satellite academy for the Border Patrol would call the base home in the 1980s for a very brief time. The end for the base would come in 1995 when the Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to permanently close Fort McClellan. The closing ceremony took place on May 20, 1999. Major General Ralph G. Wooten summed up Fort McClellan in his speech during that ceremony saying, "For more than 81 years, Fort McClellan set the standard of excellence in training America's sons and daughters to defend freedom in two world wars and a myriad of conflicts and operations. In the last generation, we were singularly responsible for providing our Army with the world's finest military police and chemical soldiers. Our pride is justified by our spectacular success!"
  
The Alabama National Guard still trains at Fort McClellan and the Center for Domestic Preparedness headed by the Department of Homeland Security is here. Something that started up in the 2000s was a huge clean-up project so that the base could be used for other purposes. This place is sometimes referred to as "the most toxic place on the planet." It would take 11 years for that clean-up to be completed. Fort McClellan has over 900 residents, has become a workplace in industrial, retail, education and technological fields and the Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge has been opened. An important part of Fort McClellan's history came in the form of a race riot. Although Fort McClellan has always been a smaller base and fairly peaceful, there was a moment in time in late 1971 when a race riot started here. It was the largest WAC base in the world at the time and 20% of the WACs were black. Some of them were run down one evening by a white driver. They were not seriously injured, but major trouble followed. Tensions had already been building on base with a few racial disputes on both sides. A list of black grievances was submitted to the race-relations officer and this was followed by a mob gathering on an athletic field. The group of blacks shouted down a white race-relations officer and a black major and MPs were brought in to break everything up and 140 people were arrested.

There have been deaths at the base. An article in the New York Times published on May 29, 1983 reported a horrible accident at the base. It reads, "A tank resembling an oxygen container but faintly labeled "argon," a gas used in welding, was examined by investigators today after the deaths of two patients who breathed the gas at the Army hospital here. Military officials confirmed early today that two patients died and a third lapsed into a coma Wednesday because the argon tank was connected to the main oxygen supply system at Noble Army Hospital on Fort McClellan in Anniston. The 100-bed hospital's operating and delivery rooms had been closed for three days while investigators determined what killed a sergeant and a premature infant and left the wife of another Army sergeant near death.
"It is apparent that we were supplied argon in place of oxygen in a tank normally used for oxygen," said Col. Edward M. Johnson, a doctor and the commander at the hospital. "Subsequent administration of argon to the patients resulted in suffocation." The patient who lapsed into a coma was Charlotte Huddleston and she ended up dying the following day from a heart attack. She was only 28 at the time. A person wrote in 2019 on the Internet that, "Inside this Hospital a ghost named Charlotte lives. She is not hostile or friendly. There is a video of “Charlotte” appearing on YouTube. This is a real story and Charlotte is real, however do not look for Charlotte because she does not like to be hunted or filmed." Charlotte really likes to mess with lights.

There are parts of Fort McClellan that are like a ghost town and that is an appropriate term because Charlotte is not the only spirit here. There are a lot of spirits that seem to surround the area at Fort McClellan. Visitors to the area have reported some strange sights, including shadowy figures, apparitions, and odd lights. Others have felt cold spots and seen doors closing by themselves. Footsteps have also been heard in the old Patton Building. The most frequently seen ghost is the spirit of a soldier who committed suicide in one of the lodging buildings by hanging himself. He is known to be a full apparition or a dark shadow figure always standing by the water fountain on the top floor of the building. He has been seen by employees, and his death does have documentation. Another spirit here is one belonging to a young girl who is wearing an old fashioned white nightgown and she likes to wonder the grounds after dark.  

The most haunted location on the base is around Buckner Circle. Buckner Circle is the street where all of the officer mansions were located. These homes have a very high turn over rate. One of those places was the home of Jim and Sandra Coxwell who moved into their house in 2005. During their first night in the house, they had a weird experience and a type of bizarre light show. Sandra said, "There was a circle of crystals that dropped down from the ceiling and it was just spiraling, spiraling and spiraling. We didn’t know what that was. We heard stories about ghosts and so we just assumed that was the ghost saying hello."

Our listener Jules who suggested this location wrote, "The spirits that Peyton and I are most familiar with are the German POWs. They actually constructed the rock cottages as part of their "imprisonment" while at the Fort. On base families have lived in these cottages. I've heard whispering in German. I was an opera major in college so it was pretty easy to recognize the voice was speaking German. When Peyton was one and a half, I walked in to check on him and he was fully engaging in a conversation and pointing at someone I couldn't see.  I've seen doors open and close, and the TV turn on and off. I always felt a presence with me more than anything."

From 2016, "In September of 1991, I was undergoing basic training at Ft. McClellan, AL. Our platoon/company was outside conducting P. T., at approx 6 or 7 pm. I clearly saw a younger woman in a white, tattered dress move across a field directly in front of us. She was semi-transparent and was no more than 100 ft away. One distinct fact that I remember is that the woman was moving, but had no legs/feet. It was the kind of thing that you shake your head at and keep going. I never asked or told anyone while I was there because I was scared of what they would say (especially during basic training). I share this story often with friends and family. It was the one and only time that I have ever experienced anything like that."

From 2019, "My friends and I come to Fort McClellan to take pictures. We’ve had previous experiences here. Once we heard the voice of a woman. Today while taking pics there, the door behind us squeaked open and there was not the slightest breeze out so we left because we got creeped out and moved on to another spot there. At that spot, almost as soon as we got out of the car, we heard things falling from the higher levels of the building. Creepy!"

Anonymous wrote in 2021, "On 18 September, 1972 while attending Basic. I woke up to go to the Latrine at midnight. It was thunder and lightening storm that night. I heard a strange sound like someone was singing. I could not figure out where it was coming from. Then I saw a white figure standing at the end of the hall. I think it was looking at me, then it disappeared into the darkness. I decided to get the hell back in bed! I remember this because I kept a journal. I was in Alfa Company, 2nd Bn. What ever building that was back then."

As we've said before, it's always great when our listeners have actually had experiences at these locations that we share. Did Jules and her Spooktacular toddler really experience ghostly activity? Is Fort McClellan haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 366 - University of North Alabama

Moment in Oddity - The Accent of Tangier, Virginia (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

We've all been on the phone or listened to a podcast with someone who has a heavy accent. We have to listen extra carefully, so that we understand what is being said. At least that is the case with English. But we imagine that it could be the same for people who speak other languages. And while some accents almost sound like another language, we generally understand what is being said especially in America. That is the case with most states and cities, except for Tangier in Virginia. Tangier Island is off the coast of Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay and despite it being 2020, the island is fairly isolated. One can only reach it by boat. And the people who live here want to stay insulated from outside influence. Families here go back to colonial times and this is reflected in their distinct dialect. Their tonal pronunciations go back centuries and the vernacular they use makes quite a bit of what they say unrecognizable. The accent is so thick that most people would assume that they are speaking a different language, but it is actually English and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Plymouth Colony Construction Begins

In the month of December, on the 23rd, in 1620, construction on the Plymouth Colony begins. The Mayflower carrying 102 passengers left Plymouth, England for the New World on September 16, 1620. The group had people who were escaping religious persecution and others who were looking for business opportunities. Despite differences, this group formed the Mayflower Compact as they sailed, which would lay the groundwork for American democracy. This incorporated both majority rule and constitutional law. The Mayflower landed on Cape Cod on November 21st. A scouting group went out and found the perfect location for their settlement and named it after the place they had come from, Plymouth. The Mayflower was brought down to the harbor and construction on dwellings began. The group would stay aboard the ship for several months as they worked on the settlement and eventually moved ashore permanently in March. Nearly half of them would die that first year, but eventually they flourished.

University of North Alabama

The University of North Alabama is located in the city of Florence and has been a fixture here for almost 200 years. It started like most older colleges, in a different spot and much smaller. Today, it has grown into a large university covering several acres with many buildings. Several of those buildings are reputedly haunted and there are even a couple of creepy statues that come to life! Join us as we share the history and haunts of the University of North Alabama.

Florence, Alabama sits along the Tennessee River and is the largest city in the area that is commonly known as the Shoals. This city also has the distinction of being home to the only house in the state of Alabama designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And the name Florence is indeed from the Italian city that is the capital of Tuscany. An Italian surveyor named Ferdinand Sannoner first surveyed the town in 1818 for the Cypress Land Company. Florence was incorporated in 1826. Four years later, LaGrange College was founded and opened by the Methodist church. Despite that origin, the goal was to have the college be neither religious or theological. This was not in Florence, but rather a mountain town called LaGrange, which means "The Barn" in French. By 1855, however, LaGrange College had moved to Florence. And that was fortunate since Union troops burned the original school to the ground in 1863. The name of the school changed at that time to Florence Wesleyan University. 

This move to Florence was controversial and many students and staff refused to move. It took three days to caravan everything to the new site, which consisted of a bunch of tents until buildings could be constructed. That is why the school needed to change its name. Admission to the university was tough. Students not only needed to have a command of grammar, geography, math and Latin and Greek, but prospective students had to be able to translate parts of four books: Caesar's Gallic Wars, six books of Virgil's Aeneid, Jacob's or Felton's Greek Reader, and at least one of Xenophon's Anabasis. There were 160 students enrolled in that first year after the move. Future politicians would graduate from here, along with Civil War generals. The Civil War would bring hardship to the university, but it managed to keep from being destroyed, although various buildings would take turns being occupied by both sides. 

In 1872, the Methodist Church deeded the university to the State of Alabama and the name changed to the State Normal School at Florence. This would be the first teachers college south of the Ohio River that was state supported. At that time, the school was still only for men, but a year after this, women were allowed to enroll. The first women would enter the school in 1874 and the first female member of the faculty would be added in 1879. This made the university one of the first co-educational schools in the country. It would remain a normal school for fifty years. In 1929, it branched into a four-year curriculum offering bachelor's degree, the first of which was awarded in 1931. Graduate courses were offered later starting in 1956. In 1957, the college would change names again, this time to Florence State College.

Although the school had been co-educational for years, there was still one milestone it needed to cross and this came in 1963 when Wendell Wilkie Gunn became the first African-American student to enroll at the college. Gunn did have to sue for this to happen when he was initially denied admission. The trial lasted just ten minutes and Gunn's lawyer Fred Gray said in 2005 that this was "the easiest case of my civil rights career." Gunn would eventually become an international trade adviser to President Ronald Reagan in 1982. By 1967, the school had expanded its programs so much that it was agreed that another name change was necessary and the school became Florence State University. Yes, those are a lot of name changes and that leads to this little fun fact. Ethelbert Brinkley "E.B." Norton, was president of the institution for all three of those name changes. Wonder if he ever forgot which school it was that he was presiding over on a particular day? 

On August 15, 1974, the university underwent its final name change and became the University of Northern Alabama. More masters programs were added and the school started enrolling thousands of students. Today, the campus is spread out over 200 acres and has nearly 6500 students. The school nickname is the Lions and it actually owns two live lions named Leo III and Una who live in a state-of-the-art facility near the main campus entrance. There are many buildings and houses that make up the campus and several of them have ghost stories connected to them. We are going to share those with you now.

The O'Neal House

The O'Neal House is located at 468 North Court Street. This was home to two governors of the state. Edward O'Neal was born in 1818 and attended the University of Northern Alabama when it was LaGrange College, graduating at the top of his class.He married Olivia Moore and they had nine children together. When the Civil War broke out, O'Neal joined the Confederate Army as a Captain and worked his way up in rank to Colonel. During the Battle of Seven Pines, he was severely wounded and his horse was killed under him. He recovered and went on to lead regiments in several other battles. After the war, he worked in law and then politics and was elected governor in 1882, serving until 1886. He died in Florence, Alabama in 1890. The O'Neal House was built in the 1840s and the O'Neals bought it in 1857. Mrs. O'Neal loved the home from the moment she saw it and it is said that she has stayed in the house even after her death. She is most often seen standing in an upstairs window and is described as beautiful with long blonde hair. For those who have encountered her apparition, they report that she is friendly.

Off Campus Bookstore

The Off Campus Bookstore is located right next to the O'Neal House at 472 North Court Street. This house is cute bungalow built in the early 1900s and was home to a young girl named Molly in the 1920s. The family had a family dog that unfortunately caught rabies. Molly loved to play with the dog, so it was only normal for her to reach out to her dog that appeared to not be feeling well as it foamed at the mouth. The dog bit her and infected her with rabies. This was before there was a treatment for rabies and the poor girl died a horribly painful death. And perhaps that is why she has returned in the afterlife. Or maybe she misses her dog. People claim to see her apparition inside and outside of the house and a few claim she has asked if they have seen her dog. Sometimes she seems to have found her dog as the pet appears with her. The Kappa Sigma Fraternity used the house in the 1980s and the room that was reputedly Molly's room, was always painfully cold. A contractor claimed to see the girl during renovations. She appeared as a floating pink mist. He also heard disembodied footsteps like those of a barefoot child. Molly continues on in the bookstore with some poltergeist activity. Candy mysteriously disappears and objects get moved around. People also see the little girl looking out of the windows when the store is closed and no one is inside.

Norton Auditorium

The Norton Auditorium is located at 600 North Pine Street. At one time, this was the largest theater venue in the area and had been known as the Auditorium and Fine Arts Center. Major musical acts have performed here as well as theater productions. The auditorium underwent its first major renovation in January 2020. And we are sure that this helped to kick up activity because the spirit that haunts this place is not an entertainer, but rather, a construction worker. The Auditorium was built in the the 1960s and a worker was working on a high beam when he fell to his death. His spirit remains and likes to play tricks and people have taken to calling him George, although no one knows what his real was. He makes noises throughout the building and plays with the lights. The theater crew claims that one night they turned all the breakers off, so that they could change out the lighting. They went on a break and when they returned, every light was ablaze...and the breakers were still off. The campus newspaper, The Flor-Ala, decided to have some of their staff try to communicate with George using a Ouija board back in 2011. Apparently, they did get some kind of communication that verified the legend. 

Coby Hall

Coby Hall is located across the street from the Norton Auditorium. Before this was Coby Hall, this was the Courtland Mansion. The mansion was built by John Simpson in the 1830s for his wife Margret Patton Simpson. It was built in the Georgian Revival architectural style. Simpson ran a mercantile business in Florence for many years. The Civil War found both the Union and Confederacy occupying the mansion at different points. Confederate General John Bell Hood was one of the occupiers. George Foster bought the house for his daughter Virginia and her husband James Irving after the war, which passed down through the family to the Irvine’s great granddaughter, Mrs. Madding King. The Kings restored the house after World War II. Ellis Coats owned the house into the early 1980s and he allowed Project Courtview to use the mansion for Florence’s first Decorator’s Showcase. Coby Hall got its name from its last private owners, David and Coby Brubaker. Coby died from cancer at a young age and David gave the house to the University of Northern Alabama in memory of her. Coby Hall was dedicated in 2005 and is the headquarters of UNA’s Admissions and Recruiting. The mansion is also used for various events. The spirit here goes all the way back to the Simpsons. Margret Simpson is believed to haunt the hall and she dislikes any loud parties. She has made several appearances during parties. She has been seen in a navy skirt and white blouse, particularly on the first floor of the house.

Willingham Hall

Willingham Hall is a college administrative building located at 687-601 N. Morrison Ave. This site originally was home for the Locust Dell Academy, which ran from 1834 to 1843. The private school had been established by a man named Nicholas Hentz and his wife Caroline. Caroline was Alabama's first best-selling novelist. The current building was constructed in 1939 by President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration as a men's dormitory. The Tennessee Valley Authority housed employees there during World War II and after the war it was a boys' dormitory. In 1947, the dormitory switched to a female dormitory and it remained that way until 1968. The name officially became Willingham Hall in 1949 for one of the college's presidents, Dr. Henry J. Willingham. His support of a new sales tax in Alabama helped insure that the teachers at the college got their full pay. Prior to this, most teachers were working twelve months for nine months of pay. The first reports of haunting activity came from an English professor who had returned to his office for a book when he heard an awful banging coming from the basement. He decided to investigate and found nothing in the basement. He went back to his office and the banging started again. This scared him to hear it a second time and he ran from the building. There are reports that Nicholas Hentz liked to play music loudly at night and there are claims that he is responsible for the noise.

Phi Gamma Delta House

The Phi Gamma Delta House is located at 523 Oakview Circle. In 2017, this grand home was nearly destroyed in a fire, but is back to its former elegance after extensive restorations. The Phi Upsilon Chapter of the fraternity calls the house home and they apparently share it with a female ghost named Ella. Ella fell down the stairs and died according to legend. Because of this, her disembodied screams are heard. She also seems to be jealous when the brothers bring their girlfriends into the house and she will act out in a poltergeist fashion.

Wesleyan Hall

Wesleyan Hall is located on Cramer Way and is probably the coolest building on campus and its oldest. The Gothic Revival architecture has many castle elements like battlements that surround the roof line. The building was designed by Adolphus Heiman who was a Prussian engineer, stonecutter, and architect. The builder was Zebulon Pike Morrison and the building was made from brick that was made on the southern edge of the campus and slave labor did the construction. Construction was completed in 1856. This served as Florence Wesleyan University. During the Civil War, both sides occupied the building at various times, one of whom was General Sherman. After the war, the university started up again, but with only one professor. The school foundered and closed in 1871. The school was turned over to the state and they chartered it as a normal school and a three-story building was added in 1909. Eventually, the buildings became part of the University of Northern Alabama and serve as the departments of Foreign Language, Geography and Psychology. 

The ghost that haunts this building is a young boy thought to be named Jeremiah. Legend claims that he was the son of one of General Sherman's officers and served as a Union drummer. He went for a swim and unfortunately drowned. People claim to see his wet footprints on the floor and his apparition has been seen standing still wet as though he just finished a swim. The campus newspaper conducted an investigation in 2011 and during that, doors opened and closed by themselves and computers turned on and off by themselves. 

Guillot University Center 

The Guillot University Center is located at 202 Guillot University Center in the heart of the campus. The building was constructed in 1986 on the former site of O'Neal Hall, which had been there since 1913. It is named for Robert M. Guillot, who was UNA's former president from 1972 to 1989. Today, this serves as a student union with a mail room for students, food court, meeting rooms, banquet facilities, 300-seat performance hall and The Lion's Den Game Room. The resident spirit in this building seems to be a carry over from the O’Neal Hall. Legend claims that a girl named Priscilla hanged herself in an elevator shaft. Several students claimed to see her apparition in the building looking very forelorn. One student claimed to hear the sobs of a woman when he was locking up the building after a fraternity meeting. He followed the sounds upstairs and saw a translucent woman weeping. He ran out of there. Local author Debra Johnson was once leading a tour on the campus and the group experienced some weird stuff in front of the center. The elevator doors opened and closed on their own even though the building was closed for the night. And then the front door opened by itself even though it clearly had to have been locked.

Romeo and Juliet Statues

The strangest paranormal stories on campus center around the statues of Romeo and Juliet. Legend claims that these statues take flight on nights with a full moon. No one knows how this happens, but every Halloween, Romeo ends up with a pumpkin in his hands. There are a couple of theories. Obviously, ours would be that some student or students are having a little fun. Others claim that this is part of some kind of pagan Halloween ritual. Faculty members like to claim that Romeo goes out and searches for a pumpkin to give to his love Juliet. Those are fun, but what is not fun are the stories that students tell of being chased by the Romeo statue as it throws pumpkins at them. Would be fun if they were flaming ala Headless Horseman. Some believe Romeo might be looking for a new love and that is why he has been seen in the women's bathroom in Steven's Hall. And one male student reported seeing Romeo standing over the fallen body of a woman. He fled and called police who could find nothing to back up the story. The student swore that he had heard a female crying and had seen the statue standing over that woman. Juliet is adventurous too. She has been spotted atop Wesleyan Hall with her eyes burning red. A female student claimed that the statue had attacked her. She had been crossing the bridge to the Guillot University Center when several strands of her hair were pulled out. When she turned around, the statue of Juliet was floating above her with blood red eyes and she was laughing.

The University of Northern Alabama has some beautiful and interesting buildings. Could it be that several of these places are haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:

Lewis O. Powell IV Blog: Southern Spirit Guide

HGB Ep. 343 - The Forts of Mobile Bay

Moment in Oddity - Exploding Whale Park

Suggested by: Mike Streibel

How does one get rid of a large rotting whale on the beach? It's probably not a question you have ever pondered, but if you live in a coastal town where dead whales wash up on the beach, you could face this rather large, stinky problem. This very problem happened to Florence, Oregon back in 1970. A large dead sperm whale was found putrefying on the beach and this posed a real health issue. Officials needed to move it, but there was a big problem...why yes, we ARE referring to the size of the whale. This whale was too large to be moved. Officials came up with a great idea that proved to be a poorly thought out solution. Why not dynamite the thing? And that is just what they did on November 12, 1970. Everybody came out to watch and all the local news stations covered the explosive event. And we bet they all wished they had stayed home. Paul Linnman, a reporter for KATU, described it this way, "The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds." Yep, there were bits of whale everywhere. It slammed into the local laundromat and other buildings in the area, a large chunk of blubber crushed a car roof and everyone in attendance got a gory shower of blood and blubber. The hope had been that the whale would explode into little bits for crabs and birds to carry off, but there were still big pieces that the city ended up burying under the sand. One would think a city would not want to commemorate this moment in history, but Florence did. On June 13, 2020, a new park was dedicated with a name that residents voted for in huge numbers. That name is Exploding Whale Memorial Park and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Coca-Cola Classic Returns

In the month of July, on the 11th, in 1985, the Coca Cola company brought back their original formula after the huge blunder of introducing New Coke. I'm a big fan of Coke and I'll never forget the day I tried New Coke. This was not a pleasant experience. Coca-Cola had been losing market share for years against Pepsi and other non-cola drinks, so the company decided to reinvigorate their brand by introducing a reformulation. Tastes tests with 200,000 consumers helped Coke to make the decision, which new formula to go forward with. What Coke didn't realize is how attached we Coke lovers are to that original formula. Calls flooded into Coke's hotline and their offices around the country. People hoarded the old Coke. There was a huge upheaval and Coke decided it would be best to bring back the original formula and they named it Coca-Cola Classic. Eventually New Coke became Coke II and now it is no longer available and Coke is just Coke again. And while the new formula was a blunder, the marketing goof actually worked wonders. It rekindled loyalty and love for Coke and many advertising experts call this an intelligent risk.

The Forts of Mobile Bay (Suggested by: Josh Nash)

At the mouth of Mobile Bay in Alabama sat three forts, Fort Gaines, Fort Powell and Fort Morgan. Fort Powell no longer exists, but both Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines are still here. All of the forts saw action in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War. Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines would also see action in the Spanish American War and both World Wars. Many people died at these forts and that has lead to stories of apparitions and other paranormal activity. Fort Morgan is considered one of the most haunted locations in Alabama. Today, the forts are historic sites that can be toured and there is even a creepy escape room for adventurous souls. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the forts of Mobile Bay!

Mobile Bay is a shallow inlet of the Gulf of Mexico that is 413 square miles, making it the fourth largest estuary in the United States. There is an abundance of seafood in the deep waters of the bay that comes up to the shallow coastline during the summer and locals call this a jubilee. They easily collect crabs, shrimp, eels, flounder and other fish. This bay is the only place in the world to have jubilees happen regularly. Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to map the bay and they named it Bahia del Espiritu Santo, meaning the Bay of the Holy Spirit. They would continue to visit throughout the 1500s. The name Mobile would come from a town established by Chief Tuscaloosa of a Mississippian Native American tribe named Maubila. This was located north of the bay and was destroyed by Hernando de Soto. The Spanish never had luck setting up a settlement, but the French did in 1702. Part of Mobile Bay is Dauphin Island, which is a barrier island at the mouth of the bay. Dauphin means "prince" in French, but it originally was called Massacre Island because the French found large piles of human bones there. This had not been a massacre site, but rather a burial mound that had been opened up by a hurricane. The French built a fort here along with a chapel, warehouse and some homes. This would serve as a major port that passed through various hands until the early 1800s when it became the property of the United States.

The original fort to stand where Fort Morgan is now, was Fort Bowyer and this was built in 1813 by the U.S. Army. It was attacked twice during the War of 1812 with the British being defeated the first time, but forcing the American troops to surrender the second time. When the war ended, the Americans got the fort back and it served as defense until construction on Fort Morgan began in 1819. The fort has a unique design that has lead to it being referred to as the "finest example of military architecture in the New World." This resembles a five pointed star and was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was constructed from brick, sandstone, granite, cement, iron work and mortar using slave labor.The name Morgan was chosen to honor Revolutionary War hero General Daniel Morgan. Work would continue on the fort until 1834. Across from Fort Morgan, on the island of Dauphin, Fort Gaines would be built starting in 1821 from brick and mortar. This fort was named for Edmund P. Gaines who was a hero of the War of 1812. Engineers decided that Fort Gaines was in sad shape and a newly designed fort was completed in 1858. This is in the shape of a pentagon.

During the Civil War, the Confederacy struggled to defend the coastline and they decided to focus on key ports. Mobile Bay was one of these ports and it became the most important import location after New Orleans fell in 1862. Goods from Havana and the Caribbean were brought through Mobile, so the Union set up ships to block the port. The Confederacy would run the blockades with steam ships and one of the most successful ships was the CSS Florida, which was able to break through the US Navy in September of 1862 and subsequently escaped through the blockade in January of 1863. There were three forts here around the bay: Fort Gaines, Fort Morgan and Fort Powell that had been partially built in 1862. It never was fully completed and sat on Grant's Pass. They had all been fortified, but when it came to gun power and actual defense, they were poorly managed. None of the forts were protected on the rear and there were not a large number of troops. There were only 600 stationed at Fort Morgan when the Battle of Mobile Bay started.

The Battle of Mobile Bay started on August 5, 1864. Rear Admiral David G. Farragut lead the Union forces and he had brought 18 boats with his naval fleet. He would face off against the Confederacy lead by Admiral Franklin Buchanan. The Confederates had fortified the three forts that guarded the bay with 67 naval mines across the entrance of the bay. There was just a small area left free of mines to allow their supply ships through. The minefield was flanked by buoys and Farragut knew what they meant. He believed he could steer through the minefield fine, but this would put him close to Fort Morgan. Farragut gave the order, "Damn the torpedoes! Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!" One of the ironclad monitors was destroyed by a mine, but the rest of the fleet made it through. Fort Gaines dealt some heavy blows with their guns though. *Fun Fact: Farragut called his device for removing mines a "cowcatcher."

Rear Admiral Farragut needed help on the ground and he planned a ground assault from the rear with the commander of the Military Division of West Mississippi, Major General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby. The two men decided that they could take the city of Mobile with a force of 5,000. Unfortunately, General Ulysses S. Grant needed troops sent to Virginia and so he would not send more than 1,500 men. This meant an assault on Mobile was not possible, but the two men believed they could at least take the bay. Now with Farragut through the mines, this force of 1,500 men who had landed 15 miles west of Fort Gaines, began making their way for a siege of the fort. They were lead by General Gordon Granger and these soldiers came from Maryland, Iowa, Illinois and Ohio.

Confederate ships entered the bay and fired on the second column of the Union fleet. The UNion ships closest to the forts continued to focus on the forts because they couldn't reach the Confederate ships with their gunfire. The Confederates dealt a heavy blow to the fleet and sunk the Tecumseh. She was completely underwater in three minutes. Only 21 of the 114 men on board survived. Many of the ships in the bay rammed each other rather than firing on each other. The Union managed to capture one of the Confederates most important ships, the ironclad CSS Tennessee, when the Admiral on board broke his leg and the Commander was unable to fight. Three hours had passed since the first shots were fired. Now a ground assault was ready to go and Fort Gaines decided it did not want to get into a hand-to-hand combat situation and it surrendered. Fort Powell surrendered quickly and was eventually destroyed, so that it no longer stands.

General Granger then set his sights on Fort Morgan. Farragut fired from the bay and Granger attacked with his men, keeping up a barrage of artillery fire. They pounded Fort Morgan for two weeks. By August 16th, the Confederates abandoned two of the batteries, which allowed Granger's men to get closer. They continued their assault until August 23rd when Confederate General Page surrendered the fort. He was arrested because he did not honor the surrender agreement and destroyed munitions. This sealed off the bay and Mobile would fall by April of the next year. Both standing forts would fall into disrepair, but the use of Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines was not over. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a new fortification system for Fort Morgan in 1895, which concreted the batteries rather than leaving them brick. The latest technology in communications and electricity was added as well. And more water mines were placed in the bay during the Spanish-American War. The batteries also were equipped with 8-inch breech loading guns on disappearing carriages. They referred to the carriages as disappearing because these guns could be rotated backward and down behind a parapet after being fired. This protected the gun from being fired on while being reloaded. The design is obsolete today, but can still be seen on display at various forts. After the war, many of the cannons and guns were given to cities to use in making memorials.

Starting in 1900 and running through 1923, Fort Morgan was the largest permanent military base in Alabama. While World War I was being fought, there were two thousand troops stationed at the fort. The post was ordered closed in 1923, but would reopen again during World War II for the U.S. Navy to protect the coast line. In July 1944, Fort Morgan was closed again and left abandoned, never to be used for war again. It has been listed on the 10 most endangered battle sites in America because its location leaves it vulnerable to erosion and damage. Today, the fort is a historic site that can be toured and features an Escape Room Attraction called Espionage at Mobile Point. The official website of the fort describes it like this, "It is the summer of 1864 and you are Federal Spies captured by the Confederate soldiers. The Battle of Mobile Bay was one of the most decisive battles of the war. Can you help the union forces understand the defenses of mobile bay? Does the fort have an effective method of attack? Your job is to find the defensive map and escape route.  LISTEN carefully!  Wise captives have been known to escape. Step back in time to discover your fate."

Fort Gaines saw action in similar fashion as Fort Morgan during the Spanish-American War and both World Wars. Today, it still serves as a base for the Coast Guard. It was also used as a setting for and episode of MTV's Fear. The fort can be toured and features original cannons and a real working blacksmith shop. Both forts are also haunted with Fort Morgan being considered one of the most haunted places in the state.

Much of the paranormal activity reported publicly at Fort Gaines was documented by MTV while filming their Fear episode there. MTV had said that some Native Americans had been used as slaves and that they were chained together in a tunnel when the tunnel collapsed, burying them alive and the claim is that the bones were never removed. This has lead to people feeling cold spots and hearing disembodied footsteps. One of the more famous apparitions here is of a Native American woman who is wearing animal skins and covered in blood. There are also spirits of Confederate and Union soldiers seen wandering the grounds. One soldier in particular will follow people around until they exit out the front gate.

There had been a home located near Fort Gaines that was relocated to a different part of the island. It needed some refurbishment and once this commenced, construction workers kept walking off the job. When they were asked why, they claimed that something was scaring them away. The problem got so bad that the refurb was stopped and the property sits abandoned. People claim to see faces in the windows and they call the police to investigate and they never find anyone inside. A mile up from the fort is a small park called Cadillac Square. Locals claim to see shadowy figures walking in the park and there is one apparition that sounds really strange. This is a woman who has a bag over her head and digs into the ground as though she is looking for something. This island had been a burial ground, so the opportunities for hauntings are wide open.

The Director at the museum on Dauphin Island is named Jim Hall and he claims that there is spiritual residue left over from the burials. He said, “Even today you can hear Indian maidens singing at night to the beat of Indian drums. There are people who say that in the shell mounds at night on some particular dates, you can see white lights emulating from the shell mounds, and that could have very well been the spirits. But then there was always the Indian Chief… His name was Chief Double Head… The six-foot, red-headed Indian Chief that walked the beaches at night and he left phosphorescent foot prints in the sand.” Hall said of Fort Gaines, “People have driven by the fort and they have seen one of the females. I don’t know whether she would have been a wife, or a child, or what. In a full dress with the full hoop skirt walking the parapets.”

Fort Morgan is considered one of the most haunted locations in Alabama and there are several spirits here. A bomb went off in one of the rooms of the fort and it killed most of the men inside. Their disembodied screams are still heard on occasion. We're not sure if this was an accident or part of a battle. A man being kept in the barracks as a prisoner in 1917, hanged himself and people claim to hear him crying at night. This old barracks is considered the most haunted spot in the fort. A young woman was attacked and killed in the fort and she still roams around it as though she is seeking justice.

Mobile Bay has seen a lot of death, particularly at her forts, so it is no wonder that there are reports of paranormal activity. The fact that Dauphin Island was once a burial ground just adds to the mystique. Are Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan haunted? That is for you to decide!

Ep. 288 - Tutwiler Hotel

Moment in Oddity - Alien Hand Syndrome
Suggested by: John Michaels

Have you ever felt like you are out of control of your body? Or at least a part of your body? I'm sure many of you have found yourself suffering a nervous twitch in a muscle or eyelid or some other weirdness. Now imagine that it is a limb that you have no control over. There are people who experience their limbs acting seemingly on their own and they feel helpless to stop it. This condition is referred to as Dr. Strangelove Syndrome or Alien Hand Syndrome (AHS). The part of the body most often affected is the left hand and mpst commonly, a person having an issue with AHS will find their hand reaching out and grabbing objects without them actually wanting to manipulate the object. It just happens on its own. And the sufferer usually has to use the hand they have control of to stop the other hand from doing what it is doing. This would seem quite comical, like something from the vaudeville stage, if it weren't a real condition. Most cases of AHS occur in people whom have had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated. Sometimes the affliction results after a stroke, infection, aneurysm, migraine or brain surgery. Alien Hand Syndrome certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Zulu War Begins

In the month of January, on the 12th, in 1879, the Zulu War began. This was a war between the British Empire and the people of Zululand in South Africa. The British troops were lead by Lord Chelmsford and the Zulu were lead by the man who became their king in 1872, Cetshwayo. The Zulu were unwilling to submit to British rule and Cetshwayo formed an army of 60,000 men. The British also wanted the Zulu to provide labour in the diamond fields of Southern Africa. The British led two invasion during the war that lasted for nearly six months. The Zulu had early success, but the second invasion ended with a decisive defeat of the Zulu. Nearly 7,000 Zulu were killed during the war. Cetshwayo was the last king of an independent Zulu Kingdom and infighting would split those left after the war. Cetshwayo died a few years later.

Tutwiler Hotel (Suggested by: Jonathan Geisel)

The Hampton Inn and Suites in Birmingham is an upscale hotel with a long history. This is the former Tutwiler Hotel and the former Ridgely Apartments. This was not the original Tutwiler Hotel. That one was built in 1914 on a different spot and eventually demolished in 1974. The Tutwiler was built in a grandiose style to attract the steel industry to come to town for conventions. This worked and Birmingham soon became a convention destination. The city felt the loss of the hotel when it was demolished and so it was decided to renovate the historic luxury Ridgely Apartments and reopen it as the new Tutwiler Hotel. And it is this location where the namesake for the hotel is reputedly still hanging around in the afterlife. Join me as we explore the history and hauntings of the Tutwiler Hotel.

In episode 142, we featured the Sloss Furnaces, which are located in Birmingham. In that episode, we talked about the city of Birmingham and how it became a center for industry after the Civil War based on the fact that iron ore, limestone and coal were abundant here. As a symbol of that industry, the city made a 55 foot cast-iron statue that was displayed at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. They named it Vulcan and today it can be found in its own park and has recently been refurbished. Vulcan is the second-tallest metal statute in America, after the Statue of Liberty. Birmingham was founded in 1871 by the Elyton Land Company. The shareholders of this company were the founders of Birmingham and included southern entrepreneurs. It would only make sense that an entrepreneur would want to build a hotel to convince the American Iron and Steel Institute to have its annual convention in Birmingham. That entrpreneur was Robert Jemison, Jr.

Robert Jemison, Jr. was said to be the greatest real estate developer of Birmingham’s 20th century and a local paper called him “Mr. Birmingham.” And just a brief list of the places he built, backs up this claim. These locations include Mountain Brook Club, Mountain Brook Village, Empire Building, Stallings Building, The Old Mill, Elmwood Cemetery, Redmont Gardens Apartments, Mountain Brook Grammar School, Mountain Brook Riding Academy, the Newberry Building, the Ridgely Apartments and the original Tutwiler Hotel. Jemison was born in Georgia in 1802. In 1826, his family moved to Alabama and he joined them. He turned his eyes to politics and served in the Alabama state legislature from 1840 to 1863. He was a Confederate States Senator from 1863 to 1865. Jemison made most of his money from his plantations and he owned over 100 slaves across six plantations. Obviously, the Civil War hit his interests hard and he lost his mansion and many other businesses. That didn't stop him from continuing to want to build things and in 1913, he came up with a plan for the Tutwiler Hotel.

There was a lack of “adequate modern hotels” in the city of Birmingham at that time. But obviously, Jemison was in need of major capital. He approached George Crawford, president of the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company, and asked him to become the president of the hotel company. Crawford said he would as long as Jemison would oversee the finances and construction for this new hotel. Once that was set, the two men knew they needed to find someone with money. They went to see the head of the Tutwiler Coal and Coke Company, Major/Colonel Edward Tutwiler, (served in Confederate army during Civil War) whom had also once been the superintendent of several of the Sloss Furnaces' mines. They were hoping he would invest in the hotel and he agreed to the tune of $1,850,000. Tutwiler asked that the hotel be named for his family. Another investor was W.P. Harding, but apparently not at a high enough level to have the Harding added to the name.

A lot was found on the southeast corner of 20th Street and 5th Avenue North and the contracting firm Wells Brothers & Company of New York City began construction in 1913. The design was created by two architects, W.L. Stoddard and W. Welton, and was unique in that there were no rooms that were completely in the interior. All bedrooms were on the outer side of the building so that ample sunlight would stream inside. There was a large beautiful lobby with balconies overlooking it from two mezzanine levels. There were two entrances to the lobby; one was a marble public corridor that was at the center of the 20th Street facade, and the other was a ladies’ entrance on the 5th Avenue side. Originally there were 343 rooms and eight large rooms that opened to make the “Grand Ball Room” which could accommodate 1,200 people. The United Hotels Company became the lessee of the hotel and they brought in trained employees and furnished the hotel when it was completed in 1914.

More than 8,000 people dressed in their formal wear turned out for the grand opening. The Tutwiler would become famous for hosting big events like a press conference for Charles Lindbergh and actress Tallulah Bankhead’s post-wedding bash and other celebrities and politicians over the next 60 years. Before long it was known as an "Outstanding Hotel of the South." Birmingham became a convention city thanks to the hotel and the Tutwiler did indeed host the American Iron and Steel Institutes convention.The hotel even managed to weather Birmingham's decision to become a dry city in 1915 and turned the hotel's drinking bar into a milk bar. (On a side note, I decided to Google milk bar and Tutwiler to get an idea of what exactly was served at a milk bar. My results educated me on the fact that there is a Tutwiler Prison in Alabama and that female inmates have a lactation room designated for them there.)

The beauty of the hotel eventually faded and by the 1960s it was becoming rundown. A facelift was attempted, but the hotel just paled in comparison to the other buildings in the downtown area around it. In 1974, The Tutwiler was imploded to make room for the First Alabama Bank. For the next twelve years, The Tutwiler Hotel was absent from the city. In 1985, the city of Birmingham was awarded the Urban Development Act Grant that gave them $895,000. They combined this with $12 million in private funding and was spearheaded by Temple Tutwiler III, Major Tutwiler's great grandson, to go forward with a plan to renovate the Ridgely Apartments and convert them into the new Tutwiler Hotel. As stated earlier, Robert Jemison had also built this building. The Ridgely Apartments were originally a 9-story luxury apartment building at 2021 Park Place near Linn Park. The project was developed in 1913 by Jemison and Tutwiler. The building is made from brick with limestone and terra-cotta details and was designed by Tennessee-born J. E. R. Carpenter. The new Tutwiler opened for business in 1986. The hotel underwent another even more extensive renovation that was completed in 2007 at a cost of $9.2 million. There are 149 rooms with 53 suites, a fitness center, signature restaurant and business center. This renovation was undertaken by hotel developer Bill Murray of Integral Hospitality Solutions. Interwest Capital now owns the hotel and is managed by New Orleans-based HRI Lodging and known as the Hampton Inn & Suites Birmingham-Downtown-Tutwiler.

And that is where the story would end for the Tutwiler, except for those nagging claims of a ghost in the hotel. It would seem that Major Tutwiler was not willing to let go of the buildings that were a part of his history. The Ridgely Apartments may not have been the original Tutwiler, but they had a connection to him other than him just funding the building of them. Tutwiler lived in the luxury apartments. And it would seem he has decided to stay and perhaps he feels even more at home since the building took on the name of the Tutwiler Hotel. Guests and staff have all told storeis of experiences with a spirit that most believe belongs to Tutwiler. In 1995, a bartender claimed to have many experiences. He had gotten in trouble with management after they claimed that he had left the lights on in the bar for over a week. He was stunned when they called him in for a lecture about proper lock-up procedures. He said that he always turned the lights off when he left. That evening he flicked off the lights, but returned a little later to make sure they were off. He found them on. He turned them off again and returned later to find them on yet again. This happened four times that evening. And then it happened for five nights in a row. Then the weirdest thing happened. When he returned to check the lights on the sixth night, he found a multi-course meal with wine and candles waiting for him.

From that point on, the staff have taken to running through a ritual to appease the spirit of Major Tutwiler. The staff address the ghost of Major Tutwiler every night at closing with the words: “Good night Major! Please turn the lights and stove off, and don’t make a mess!” No one has found a multi-course meal waiting for them again and the lights generally remain off throughout the evening. But Tutwiler may not be the only spirit here. Guests report hearing knocking on their doors in the middle of the night, usually on the sixth floor. These knocks are usual loud and rapid and when guests go to the door, they find no one there. This ghost has been nicknamed The Knocker and is believed to be a male spirit because only women staying in a room alone have had these knocking experiences. But I've read other accounts that claim a young girl is responsible.

Kim Johnston, founder of SCARe, Spirit Communications and Research of Alabama, who has investigated The Tutwiler, said,  “I can confirm there is a little girl’s spirit who haunts several floors there. We caught audio of a little girl saying ‘knock, knock’ in a sweet little voice.” During World War I, a family lived on the sixth floor—a father, mother and little girl. The father was a soldier and killed in battle. Shortly after, the mother died of tuberculosis. That left the little girl an orphan. It’s possible the child ended up in a nearby orphanage, which burned down soon after and there is the theory that she died in that fire and then returned to her former home. Edward Wolfgang Poe who runs the Birmingham Historic Touring Company said, “Staff have seen on security cameras a little girl in a long dress and pigtails skipping up and down the halls on the sixth floor. They see people walk by without acknowledging her. Some have seen her turn and walk into a room without opening a door.”

So is the spirit of Major Tutwiler here? Are there other spirits poking around this historic building? Is the Tutwiler Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 142 - Sloss Furnaces

 
Moment in Oddity - Clay Castle
by: Bob Sherfield

For many people, the Carpathian Mountains, located in the Transylvania region of Romania, are famous solely as being the home of Count Dracula. Now, however; they have a new tourist attraction. A Romanian couple has spent two years constructing an eco-friendly "fairytale castle" in the mountains of Transylvania, using only natural materials. Razvan and Gabriela Vasile, who had been living in Bucharest, sold their home to build the "castle" in a small village just over 20 miles from the city of Sibiu. The property, which they have called the "Clay Castle of the Valley of Fairies," is made of 100% organic clay, straw and sand, with all wooden pillars and not a lick of modern paint or varnish. The building appears to be straight out of Middle Earth and looks nothing like a castle with its white washed walls and steeply pitched shingle roofs, which reach almost to the ground. The owners' plan is to open Clay Castle as a hotel. It is already a tourist attraction in its own right, and one couple even hosted their wedding reception there. Their enthusiasm for ecology also extends to heating the property, as the ten rooms will be kept warm in the harsh winter months with traditional wood-burning fires. The owners haven't yet explained how they'll keep the rooms cool in the summer. Warm or cold, the fairy-like Clay Castle certainly is odd!

This Day in History - Echo 1 is Launched
by: Kristin Swintek

On this day, August 12th, in 1960, Echo 1, NASA’s first communications satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, FL. The satellite measured 100 feet or 30.5 meters in diameter, was designed by the Space Vehicle Group of the NASA Langley Research Center and was constructed by General Mills of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A communications satellite’s function is simple: send data into space and beam it back down to earth. To accomplish this, Echo 1 essentially worked as a giant 10 story tall mirror that a signal could bounce off easily. It was the first satellite to facilitate two-way, live communication. President Eisenhower delivered the first live voice communication via the satellite. In the radio message he said “This is one more significant step in the United States’ program of space research and exploration being carried forward for peaceful purposes. The satellite balloon, which has reflected these words, may be used freely by any nation for similar experiments in its own interest.” The Echo 1 was involved in many firsts, including the first coast-to-coast telephone call using a satellite and the first image transmitted via satellite, which was a portrait of President Eisenhower. To communicate with the Echo 1, Bell labs created a 50ft (15 meter) antenna. While calibrating the antenna, radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected cosmic microwave background radiation, which was the first solid evidence of the Big Bang. Penzias and Wilson later won the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Even though the satellite was incredible durable, surviving a meteor shower, it was still susceptible to sunlight. The sunlight was strong enough to move the satellite around, pushing it back into the Earth’s atmosphere. On May 24, 1968, Echo 1 burned up on re-entry.

Sloss Furnaces (Suggested by listeners Lisa Atkinson and Megan Parks)

Birmingham, Alabama is one of the more well known southern cities. Sloss Furnaces is a popular spot for music and art in Birmingham today. Many may not realize that this imposing historic landmark has a key role in the founding and growth of this famous southern city. For 90 years, Sloss Furnaces produced iron. It is the only blast furnace in America to have been preserved and restored. Something else has been preserved from the past. There are rumors of spirits here and not just the ones that come out every Halloween when Sloss hosts Sloss Fright Furnace. Ghosts seem to lurk in the old buildings. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Sloss Furnaces.

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1700s. It was a time when hand made products moved to factory production by machines. This was the beginning of innovation. Coal and iron ore were a central piece of industrialization. As the Industrial Revolution took off, so did iron production. The Industrial Revolution took a foothold in America during the War of 1812, when an embargo was set that would prevent export from and import to America. In 1825, a new Iron Age began. The construction of bridges, railways, ships and even items such as window frames, fueled this new era. Iron was made by smelting iron ore, which was heating it up to its melting point, and then casting it into ingots, called pigs. The result was called pig iron. This pig iron could be melted and poured into moulds to make a variety of things. Coal was turned into coke to use for smelting, which prevented the iron from becoming brittle. There were two kinds of iron made: cast iron and wrought iron. *Fun Fact: Iron is the fourth most common metal in the earth's crust.*

Coal, limestone and iron ore were beneath Birmingham, Alabama, so it was natural for it to become an industrial center. Birmingham is the only place in the world where these three elements are found together in these amounts. The city is located at the crossing of two major railway lines, the Alabama & Chattanooga Railway and North & South Alabama Railway, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The city grew so quickly at its beginnings that it was dubbed the "Magic City." But the city is known for more than just its industrial production. It really was the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr's brother was a pastor in the city and events like the Freedom Riders being attacked on a bus there by the KKK in 1961, demonstrations in 1963 led by King and the bombing of a church that killed four school girls solidified Birmingham's place in Civil Rights history. Bull Connor added to this with his actions to enforce racial segregation as Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety. Those actions became known internationally. And they helped push forward the Civil Rights Act of 1964. What were some of those actions? The use of attack dogs and fire hoses on peaceful protestors.

Birmingham was founded in 1871 by the Elyton Land Company. The shareholders of this company were the founders of Birmingham and included southern entrepreneurs. Colonel James Withers Sloss was one of those men. Sloss was born in 1844 to Joseph and Clarissa Sloss in Mooresville, Alabama. He was not well educated and decided to apprentice as a bookkeeper at a butcher's shop. In 1842, he opened a general store. He married Mary Bigger at that time as well. The couple bought land and started their own plantation, which they continued to expand through the years and eventually Sloss became a rich man. The Colonel part of his name comes from his service in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He became president of the Nashville & Decatur Railroad after the war in 1867. He later joined as a shareholder with the Elyton Land Company. He convinced the L & N Railroad to bring the North & South Alabama Railway through the city. He then helped found the Pratt Coke and Coal Company.

Sloss founded the Sloss Furnace Company in 1881 and began building the City Furnace that would eventually take his name and become the Sloss Furnaces. The Elyton Land Company donated 50 acres to Sloss' company to build the City Furnace. A European engineer named Harry Hargreaves had studied under British inventor Thomas Whitwell and he was put in charge of the design and construction of the furnaces. The furnaces were equipped with Whitwell stoves that were 60 feet high and 18 feet in diameter. There were also ten boilers and two blowing engines. All of which were manufactured in the south. In April 1882, the furnaces went into blast. In that first year of production the furnace sold 24,000 tons of iron. Louisville hosted an exposition in 1883 and the Sloss Furnace Company won a bronze medal for "best pig iron."

Sloss would remain with the company for only four years and then retire. Before he retired, the Birmingham press declared the following about Sloss, “His excellent business qualifications, brilliant intellect, splendid character, and fine executive ability, all combined, make him the grandest man in Alabama today for our chief executive. He is the very personification of Christian manhood and integrity, possessing the qualifications of head and heart which we should emulate.” The press wanted Sloss to be governor. The Sloss Furnace Company was sold to John Johnston and Joseph Johnston who expanded it and renamed it Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company. Even though it had that name, no steel was produced here. After the expansion, Sloss became the second largest merchant pig-iron company in Birmingham and by World War I, they were one of the largest producers in all the world. The company owned 120,000 acres of coal and ore land, 1500 beehive coke ovens, five Jefferson County coal mines and two red ore mines, brown ore mines, and quarries in North Birmingham. *Fun Fact: By 1941 when America entered the war, nearly half the labor force was employed by the iron and steel and mining industries; more than two-thirds of the industries’ workers were African-American.*

Despite the large amount of black workers, Sloss was a segregated work place. The company was also set up in tiers with only whites in the positions of management, accountants, chemists and engineers at the top and the all black labor gangs were at the bottom. Working at Sloss Furnaces was tough. Men could barely see in front of them because of the dark conditions created by the smelting process. The heat from those processes would reach well over a hundred degrees. The work was labor intensive as men shoveled coal as quickly as they could to fuel the furnaces. Most workers were immigrants with few other options to feed their families. Makeshift barracks were all they had to sleep in and there were no labor laws in place or unions to protect them. And then there was James “Slag” Wormwood who was a foreman at Sloss Furnaces. He was in charge of nearly 150 men and he was not a benevolent boss. Slag would let them have very little sleep before he was banging on the walls and ordering them back to work in conditions that were not only unbearable, but unsafe.

Slag was the type of guy who was not only a jerk, but he liked to impress his colleagues. One of the ways he accomplished that was by forcing his workers to perform dangerous tasks. Just because he could. The result was the death of forty-seven men under his watch. That number was ten times more than any other shift in the history of Sloss. Slag left his workers hungry and tired. One would not blame those workers for wanting to end their hell on earth. And some think they did. One day, ole Slag lost his footing at the top of the highest furnace and fell to his death. Was Slag just clumsy that day? Perhaps overcome by methane gas? Probably not. Slag never climbed to the highest furnace. In all his time at Sloss, he had never climbed up there. The likely scenario is that the workers revolted, grabbed Slag and dragged him to the uppermost heights and then threw him over to his death.

The Sloss Furnaces that we see today has no original part of the first furnace complex still standing. During the early 1930s, the complex was mechanized and the furnaces were rebuilt, doubling the production of the facility. The oldest building dates to 1902 and there are forty buildings here. The blower engines date to 1902 and the steam boilers are from 1906 and 1914. Two slag granulators were installed in the 1940s and by the 1950s the blower engines were replaced with turbo blowers. The site closed for production in 1970. In 1977, Birmingham voters approved a bond to help stabilize the historic structures. In 1981, Sloss Furnaces was named a National Historic Landmark. Today, it serves as a concert venue, a festival location, has an innovative metal arts program and is a museum. Tours are available.

Sloss Fright Furnace opens for Halloween and offers some cool chills in a very creepy location. But its not just the old buildings and smokestacks that give this location its creepy vibe. There really seems to be something haunting Sloss Furnaces and it is no wonder with all the deaths that occurred here, the unbearable conditions and that horrible work boss Slag and his mysterious and horrible death. It wasn't long after Slag's little mishap, that strange things started happening. Accidents became rampant and there were so many on the graveyard shift that the company decided to no longer have that shift. One worker had a shirt get caught in a large flywheel and he was pulled into the gear and killed.

Many blame Slag for most of the paranormal activity. People claim to feel an evil presence and have even seen a shadowy figure that has been described as demonic in appearance. As Slag's legend has grown, so have the reports of supernatural happenings. A night watchman was quite shaken one evening while he was walking the grounds. He was violently shoved from behind and when he spun around to see who had attacked him, he saw no one. Then he heard a disembodied voice scream, “Get back to work!”

The watchman was lucky that he was only pushed. Another man claimed that he saw this shadowy presence that was the most evil thing he had ever seen and before he could react or run, he felt fists hitting his body. The attack was quick, but the effects were a bit more lasting. The man lifted his shirt and found burn marks where the punches had connected with his body. The watchman never worked at Sloss again. Other people claim to hear audible voices yelling at them to push some steel or pick up their pace. Are these the residual orders of Slag or some other boss? Apparently they occur most times during the shift that Slag would have managed.

One of the other ghosts here is the spirit of Theophilus Calvin Jowers. He had worked at another furnace, Oxmoor Furnace, starting in 1873. By 1889, he was assistant foundryman there. One of his jobs was to change the bells on the furnace and on this particular day, he was trying to change the bell on the Alice Furnace. He was walking around the edge of the furnace, using a block and tackle, when he lost his footing. He and the bell fell into the molten iron. Workers ran to his aid, but not much was left of him. The Birmingham Age reported, "A piece of sheet iron was attached to a length of gas pipe, and with that instrument his head, bowels, two hip bones and a few ashes were fished out." Jowers apparition was seen soon after near the furnace. It was not unusual to see his spirit in places too hot for humans. The Alice Furnace was torn down in 1905, so Jowers spirit moved on to another furnace at Oxmoor. When that one was taken apart, he decided to relocate to Sloss Furnaces for some reason. Jowers' son John claimed he saw his father's spirit walking through the hot furnace there one day.

It would be easy to explain this all away as overactive imaginations if not for the fact that the Birmingham Police Department has reports of over 100 times they have been called out to the property. And it hasn't been for criminal activity. These reports detail unexplained activity. Sloss Furnaces has been featured on “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Adventures.”

Working at the furnaces was dangerous and evoked many emotions from fear to dread to anger. Have these emotions marked this location permanently? Do evil entities feed off this energy? Is one of those evil spirits that of the foreman Slag? Is Sloss Furnaces haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 111 - University of Montevallo

Moment in Oddity - Madame Tussaud's Overnight
by: Bob Sherfield

In 1947, 110 would be Royal Marine Commandos embarked upon a nationwide, five day long, “personal initiative” test. Taking the initiative test was a very serious matter for the men, passing out as a fully-fledged Commando would depend upon it, but for the officers who designed and set the bizarre tasks  it was a lot more fun. On Thursday May 8th each man was given an individual task and ordered to reach their destinations, complete their task, and return with proof that they had done so, on or before Tuesday May 13th. To make things more difficult, the men weren’t allowed to begin the test until the last train of the night had left the local station, Towyn in Wales (now Tywyn). None of the men had received any pay for nearly a fortnight, and they were not given any money. They were however issued with five days’ worth of iron rations to sustain them. And so off they went into the darkness, in groups of two or three, to disperse across the country and attempt to complete their individual tasks. One of the men was assigned to “Spend a night in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s”. Getting to London with no money and  in the middle of the night must have been a gruelling task. Requesting free admission and an overnight stay at Tussaud’s would have been even more difficult. Spending the night with images of  Dr Crippen, Burke & Hare, Marat, models of torture etc would definitely not be pleasant. Other men had to attempt tasks such as:

    Work at the face of a specified coal pit
    Secure 100 feet of film of himself at Denham Studios
    Get himself on any BBC broadcast
    Find out the population of three villages whose names are pronounced like ” Who” ,” Why,” and “When”.
    Find the smallest house in Britain
    Get a job as a bricklayer’s labourer for four hours
    Work as a corporation dustman for two hours in specified cities
    Get a handkerchief dyed pink at Hinckley Dye Works, Leicestershire, and get a photograph of the
    prettiest girl in the works

We're not sure if the man assigned to spend a night in The Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s was successful, but we certainly would not want that task. A wax museum. At night. With famous horror scenes. Being assigned the task to spend the night in Madame Tussaud's as a personal initiative test, certainly is odd!

This Day in History - Bell Makes First Successful Phone Call
by: Steven Pappas

On this day, March 10th, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful call with a telephone. In the 1870s, telegraph use was increasing rapidly. Western Union President William Orton even called it the "nervous system of commerce". Bell went to the head of the Smithsonian in 1875 and said he was considering a multi-tone telegraph device that he hoped would one day have the capability of transmitting the human voice. The Smithsonian head said he loved the idea and when Bell protested saying he did not have the knowledge to create such a device, the man told him simply, in regards to the knowledge, "Get it". This inspired Bell and after teaming with Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical engineer and mechanic, the two began work on what they referred to as an acoustic telegraph.This would eventually be patented and the men would create the first working telephone. The first successful message was sent to the other room stating simply, "Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you".

University of Montevallo (Suggested by listener: Lisa Atkinson)

The University of Montevallo in Alabama has roots back to the Civil War and even back beyond that time period. The college started off as an all girls school using many antebellum buildings in town to serve as campus buildings. It was an educational experiment that worked and eventually led one day to the college becoming a co-ed institution. It's success continues to this day. The campus is part of a historic district and has seen quite a few tragedies in its time. Massacres, horrific deaths and war have led to unrest in the afterlife. It would seem that the university is quite haunted. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the University of Montevallo.

The town of Montevallo in Alabama had once been the home to the Creek tribe. Jesse Wilson moved to the area and bought some land up on a hill in 1814. The area would come to be known as Wilson's Hill. Once he was established, he invited friends and family to follow him. The settlement later changed its name to Montevallo, which is Italian and means "the hill in the valley." The city was incorporated in 1848 and began to flourish with the building of a rail line to Selma and a coal mine. Wealthy businessman Edmond King brought his wife and son to Montevallo in the 1820s. He built a mansion up on the hill and called it Mansion House. It would later come to be known as the King House. The King family lived peacefully with the Creek tribe that was in the area and the mansion was considered one of the most beautiful homes in the state.

The Civil War later came through Montevallo and a Confederate hospital was set up in a large building that would later become Reynolds Hall. The Confederate soldiers built underground tunnels to allow themselves safe passage. One of the legends from the Civil War was that Sherman's forces came through and destroyed the nearby Brierfield Ironworks and then stopped in at the Confederate hospital and killed all the sick and wounded men there. The victims were buried in Kings Cemetery. In the 1890s, the residents of Montevallo set their sights on having a college and they put a bid in to become the location of the Alabama Girl's Industrial School. This was going to be a white women's technical school. The city of Montevallo won.

The college was founded in 1896. It would be a great thing for the area to have the college here and it would eventually be the main source of revenue, pushing out the coal mining industry. You may recall the name of the Olmstead Brothers architectural firm from our Biltmore episode. They designed the grounds there and they also designed Central Park in New York. The Olmstead Brothers designed the campus in Montevallo. It's important to note that many antebellum buildings were already at the site and they were just adopted into use at the college. For this reason, several design styles are seen ranging from Greek Revival to Colonial Revival to Federal. Two of the main buildings are King House and Reynolds Hall. The campus covers nearly 26 acres.

When the college first opened, it was innovative in that it made it a goal to teach women to be self-supporting. The first class of women had 150 in their number. They learned bookkeeping, art, music, sewing and how to work the telegraph and many were trained to become teachers themselves. Captain Henry Clay Reynolds was the first president of the school. He championed the school coming to Montevallo. Reynolds Hall was named for him. The good Captain had set up an interesting tuition payment plan. His plan was that the students pay their tuition directly to him and he invest the money into furnishings for his home and other personal expenses. Let's just say that the Reynolds name has lasted longer than the Captain lasted as president of the college.

In 1911, the college changed its name to the Alabama Girls’ Technical Institute and then added "and College for Women" in 1919. As the curriculum continued to round out over the years, it became apparent that it was more than just a technical school and the name was changed again in 1923 to Alabama College, State College for Women. In 1956, it was decided to make the college co-educational and the "College for Women" portion of the title was dropped and men began to attend the college. On September 1, 1969, the college came to be known as the University of Montevallo. Because of the age of many of the buildings, the campus became a National Historic District and was added to the National Register of Historic Places.There are currently 73 campus buildings and 8 residence halls.

It's no surprise with the age of some of the buildings on campus, that there are tales of ghost sightings. One of the most popular stories is about a girl named Condie Cunningham. Condie was born in Alabama in 1891. She decided to attend the Alabama Girls Industrial School and she moved into a fourth floor dorm room in Main Hall, the largest women's dorm. She accidentally caught her night gown on fire with a chafing dish. What could have been a quick fix by drop and rolling to smother the flames, turned into a tragedy when Condie took off running down the hall and screaming for help. She was terribly burned, and later died. Every one who stayed in her former room since then has demanded to be moved immediately due to strange occurrences. The room is no longer assigned, and there is a locked metal door on the room. Each hall director has passed down the tale of seeing the image of a woman screaming in the wood grain, even after replacing it multiple times. The last wooden door removed from the room is still there in a storage room, and they let people check it out up close.The image of a screaming woman seems to have its hair on fire. A full bodied apparition engulfed in flames has been witnessed running in the hallways. Disembodied screams are heard as are the disembodied sounds of running feet. Doors and windows open and close on their own.

Here is the story as it appeared in the Birmingham Age-Herald on Feb. 7, 1908:

"Miss Condie Cunningham died last night at 10 o'clock at the Girls Industrial School in Montevallo from the burns she received last Tuesday night by her clothing catching on fire from an alcohol lamp. Miss Cunningham is the daughter of W.C. Cunningham, clerk of the inferior court, and her parents were at her bedside in the dormitory when death came. The remains will arrive in Birmingham over the Louisville and Nashville railroad at noon today, being carried by private conveyance from Montevallo to Calera. No funeral arrangements have yet been made, but the funeral will probably be tomorrow morning. The body will be accompanied to Birmingham by an escort of the faculty. The fatal accident has cast a gloom over the entire school at Montevallo, where Miss Cunningham was held in high esteem by her class mates. She was just 17 years of age and had been a student at the school for the past two years. On Tuesday night Miss Cunningham and her roommate were busy with a chafing dish in their room in the dormitory and while trying to extinguish the flames of the alcohol lamp here clothing caught on fire. She rushed into the hall where the flames were soon put out by her schoolmates, but not before she had been badly burned. Her parents in Birmingham were immediately notified of the accident and went to Montevallo on the next train. Doctors worked hard, but their efforts were of no avail, and after 48 hours of suffering the beloved student succumbed to her injuries."

Lisa shared the following personal experiences that she had: "I lived on the 3rd floor of Main Hall, in the back of the center hall (it had an east, west, and central hall each branching from the main lobby like the letter E), and one day I walked to the front of the hall so I could descend the grand staircase. As I reached the staircase I heard VERY loud footsteps stomping over my head, running toward the back of the 4th floor hall above me. I was concerned something was wrong. I ran upstairs but saw nothing. No one went into a dorm room because you can hear the old, heavy wood doors echo when opened and closed. I even went to see if someone was in the bathroom. There was no one. On another day, I was leaving for class and as I walked by the ladies bathroom I heard the squeak of the old metal shower knob turn on. I remember this reminded me to go ahead and use the restroom before my very long class. I went into the bathroom, but did not hear the usual sounds of someone taking a shower. No splashing or singing like some girls did. The entire bathroom was empty. Every stall. One shower stall had the hot water spraying full blast, and I burned my hand turning it off. But I heard the shower turn on from just outside the door!"

Reynolds Hall is now the theater building and as is the case with so many theaters, this one is haunted. Captain Reynolds is thought to be one of the ghosts. The story behind his haunting goes back to the massacre that happened in this building when it was a Confederate hospital. Captain Reynolds had been given the duty of security for the hospital. But when he heard the nearby ironworks was under attack, he took his men from the hospital to go defend the ironworks. When they returned, they found everyone massacred. The Captain vowed that day to never leave the hospital unguarded and many believe that is what he is doing in the afterlife. Of course, that is only if the massacre actually happened and it may not have. Perhaps Reynolds is bitter about being fired as president of the college. Doors and windows shut and open on their own at this building. The blue glowing specter of Captain Reynolds has been seen on various occasions. Reynolds' picture was hanging in the lobby for many years and was finally removed and replaced with another painting. Staff came in the following day to see the new painting on the floor, replaced by Reynolds' portrait.

The King Cemetery is right in the middle of campus. The King family is buried there along with Confederate soldiers. It is thought that a young male member of the King family was killed in an accidental shooting and is buried in the cemetery. Condie is not the only ghost in Main Hall. A young woman commited suicide in the dorm and her apparition is sometimes seen. Palmer Hall has an auditorium, organ and stage area. One of its designers was named W. H. Trumbauer. His name was left off the cornerstone and perhaps that is why his ghost haunts this building. His ghost has been seen wandering around backstage. He also likes to judge the student created plays that are put on during the week of Homecoming. During final dress rehearsals, students claim he swings the battens over the performance of his pick. A batten is the horizontal pole from which curtains or lights can be hung. A student was once practicing the organ alone in the building. She played for a while and then decided it was time to head home. When she stopped playing, she heard a disembodied voice ask her to continue to play.

Hanson Hall is a female residence dorm and is apparently haunted.  The ghost is believed to have belonged to a dedicated housemother who has stayed on in the afterlife to look after the girls. Women who stay up late studying complain about feeling as though they are being watched. One young woman claimed her mug disappeared while she was studying. She looked everywhere for it, but could not find it. A few weeks later, the mug showed up again in the same spot from where it had disappeared.

The King House is used for special occasions on the campus and a former maid there does NOT like having guests in the home she once cared for. Edmund King buried his gold outside of the house to hide it from the Union and people now claim to see the ghost of an elderly man carrying a lantern and a shovel, walking around the outside of the house, more than likely looking for his gold. One night, some students claimed to see a lantern moving from window to window on the second floor when there was no one in the building. On another occasion, students saw an elderly man who was transparent, waving to them from a second story window. Cold spots are felt throughout the house.

And instead of a lady in white at this location, there is a "lady of the rock." Near King House is a painted rock called Sigma Rock. Fraternities have a tradition of painting the rock. A woman dressed in yellow is seen sometimes sitting on the rock. She's there one minute and gone the next. At other times she is seen wandering around the rock. No one knows why she is there, but students have been telling the story that she is heartbroken and looking for her lost love.

Lupei writes of her experiences on the campus:

"My boyfriend heard someone tell him to get out when he and his friend along with the baseball team snuck into King's House late at night, ironically during halloween.  I've heard Condie's hollow, hair-raising scream at 4:45 am one Wednesday night in December. I've seen a woman in the corner of my room in a civil war era dress seemingly chastizing me for having snuck my boyfriend into my dorm room late at night to sleep. And then there's King's House kitchen who anyone who's paid any attention to it has gotten a bad vibe from that place and more then a handful of people have told me they've also felt watched whenever they've gone near them."

The University is a place open and welcoming to everyone now. Is it open to more than just the living? Do the ghosts of Confederate soldiers and former students roam the campus? Is the University of Montevallo haunted? That is for you to decide!