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. 249 - Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design

 
Moment in Oddity - Seaborn Goodall House
Suggested by: Nicole Dixon

Jacksonborough in Georgia was once the county seat of Screven, but today nobody would know that it had ever existed, save for one house, the Seaborn Goodall House. Lorenzo Dow was a traveling preacher and when he arrived in Jasksonborough, he expected the local folk to be very welcoming. After all, this was the south, known for its hospitality. But he found the townspeople to be quite the opposite. They were cold and rude. Seaborn Goodall was different. He invited Dow to come stay at his house. Dow's first sermon in town drew a large crowd and he thought perhaps he had misjudged everyone. However, the people were not there to worship and soon Dow figured out that they were all drunk. They cursed him and screamed for him to leave town. Dow decided that he should do just that and he shook the dust of the town from his feet and called out an eternal curse on Jacksonborough. That curse declared that no business would prosper and that all the homes would eventually be destroyed, except the home of Seaborn Goodall. Soon, fires sprung up, the creek flooded the town and mysterious winds ripped roofs off of homes. Houses not destroyed by natural disasters just literally fell to the ground. Once prosperous stores were forced to close when they began to lose money. The only thing that managed to stand was the bridge. Every home was gone, except for one. The home of Seaborn Goodall. That house remained unburned, unflooded and undamaged. Through it all, his home stood solid, always unburned by the fires, undamaged by the storms and floods. And the house still stands over 160 years later, while any other attempt to establish residences or businesses has failed, and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - British Parliament Abolishes the Slave Trade

In the month of March, on the 25th, in 1807, the British Parliament abolished the slave trade. Earlier bills had failed, but a new effort was put forth in 1806 with the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill. The Bill would prevent the import of slaves by British traders into territories belonging to foreign powers and was introduced by the Attorney-General, Sir Arthur Leary Piggott. The Bill passed Parliament on March 23, 1806 and was sent to the House of Lords. Lord Grenville, who was the Prime Minister, read the bill making it official policy. After a second reading, it was agreed to 100 votes to 34. The Bill them moved to the House of Commons. Wilburforce, who was an abolitionist that had fought to end the slave trade for 18 years, received a standing ovation during the debate over the Bill. That debate lasted ten hours and the House voted in favor of the Bill by 283 votes to 16. The Bill received Royal Assent on March 25th and the slave trade was finished forever for Britain.

Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design (Suggested by listener Kate Wilker)

The city of Lakewood is a suburb of Denver, Colorado. There was never a traditional downtown in the city, but there was a central business area along Colfax Avenue and it became home to the
Jewish Consumptives' Relief Society, which treated patients suffering from tuberculosis. When TB was no longer a threat, the property was opened as the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. The college offers a curriculum in animation, photography, graphic design, fine arts and fashion design, but it also offers something else: ghosts. There have been many reports of supernatural activity on the campus and one of the people who has experienced that is our listener Kate Wilker, who suggested this location. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design!

The town of Lakewood was platted on July 1st, 1889, by Charles Welch and W.A.H. Loveland. Loveland was the president of the Colorado Central Railroad and he was ready to retire. He wanted to find a new area to build his estate and chose a spot in an area west of Denver along Colfax Avenue. Soon Lakewood became a place where the rich would build their summer estates. An electric tramway arrived in 1893 and spurred the development of Lakewood by connecting it with Denver and Golden. This was called "The Loop." The late 1800s would see a large influx of Jews and they would soon need a place to take care of their numbers that contracted tuberculosis.

Eastern European Jews had started arriving in Denver in 1870 and they were followed in the 1880s by Russian Jews. Russia was a place of discrimination and economic hardship at that time and they saw new opportunities in America. They referred to America as the Goldineh Medinah, which is “Golden Land” in Yiddish. The west promised even more possibilites and they headed for Colorado with most of them settling in a west-side immigrant enclave along the Platte River. They worked as shopkeepers and peddlers and founded the first synagogue on West Colfax. Denver's Newsies were mostly young Jewish kids and they would hawk the papers on street corners.West Colfax was soon almost exclusive Jewish businesses and so was very similar to New York's Lower East Side although Dr. Maurice Fishberg, head physician for the United Hebrew Charities of New York asserted in 1904 that "the homes of the poor living here [in Denver’s West Colfax area] are as a rule tidy and clean, nothing like the overcrowding seen in Jewish quarters in New York or Chicago. The environment here looks more like that of the average small western town, than like a Jewish district of Europe."

At this time in the early 1900s, the West Colfax Jewish neighborhood experienced an influx of Jews who were sick with tuberculosis. TB was the leading cause of death in the United States at that time and people from all walks of life moved to Colorado, with the hope that the dry climate would heal their lungs. Colorado would come to be known as "The World’s Sanatorium." No public sanatoriums existed at the time and so private organizations built institutions. The Jewish community founded National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives', in 1899. All patients were treated free of charge at the hospital. Its motto was "None May Enter Who Can Pay, None Can Pay Who Enter." The drawback with National Jewish was that it only treated early stage TB and it did not have a kosher kitchen. So a group of Jewish working class immigrants in the West Colfax neighborhood banded together in 1903 and formed the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society or JCRS. This sanatorium would treat patients in all stages of the disease. The hospital was built on the future home of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.

Many prominent Jewish east European physicians joined the society. The most important of these men was Dr. Charles Spivak. He was born in Russia Ukraine and emigrated to America where he worked in factories early on. He eventually went to medical school, specializing in gastroenterology. He and his wife moved to Denver for her health and one of his first major contributions to the medical community was to form a medical library of sorts. He devised a procedure called the “Union Catalogue Plan.” This listed where all the medical books in Denver were and when they were available for research. He joined the JCRS when it opened in 1904 and became its number one advocate. There were initially seven patients and they were housed in white wooden tent-cottages so they would have plenty of fresh air. The JCRS's motto was “He Who Saves One Life Saves the World.” Ten thousand patients would seek care at the JCRS over the following fifty years and none of them were charged. In 1954, the institution changed its mission to cancer research, becoming the American Medical Center.

The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, or RMCAD, was founded in 1963 by Philip J. Steele, an artist and teacher. The college relocated several times to keep up with its growing student population. In 2003, the college moved to the larger 23 acre campus in Lakewood and uses several buildings from the sanatorium days. Full Sail University purchased a controlling share of the college from the Steele family in 2010 and moved most liberal arts courses on line. The RMCAD campus has been designated as a National Historic District and has 17 structures on the property. Because of its past as a place where many people came to die, it seems that some of that past energy has remained today and students and staff have reported many strange occurrences through the years. Our listener Kate Wilker is a student at the college and she joins us to share stories about these experiences.

Kate wrote, "This past October I took a ghost tour at the school, which is full of history. It was originally a campus for people to live with terminal tuberculosis. The campus has a large hospital complete with underground tunnels and even a murder that occurred due to unrequited love between a nurse and patient. Many of the maintenance workers and long time staffers have stories of ghosts and paranormal viewings."

So many sanatoriums around the world have reports of unexplained activity and ghost stories. Do those who once died or worked at the sanatorium still hang around in the afterlife? Is the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 219 - Arcadia University

 
Moment in Oddity - Skeletal Body Paint Rituals
(Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

Chimbu Province is located in the Highlands Region of Papua, New Guinea. The area is 7,800 feet above sea level and is home to the Chimbu tribe, which numbers around 60,000 members. The tribe was unknown to the world until 1934. What makes them unique is their tradition of skeletal body paint. Centuries ago, the tribe began painting their bodies with black and white paint so that they would appear to be living and moving skeletons and this was done to scare their enemies. Today, the tribe no longer needs to scare enemies, but they continue the tradition with a festival they call "Sing Sing," which is a Pidgin word meaning music party. The festival is conducted to bring together all the tribal groups to celebrate the rituals and traditions of their cultures. Around 60to 100 tribes take part in the skeleton dance. Both men, women and children all participate and  paint their bodies. The dances consist of fluid movements and aggressive gestures that imitate attacking or defending oneself. The skeletal body paint is really cool, but it also certainly is odd!

This Month in History - PT-109 Rammed Nearly Killing Future President John F. Kennedy

In the month of August, on the 1st, in 1943, American patrol torpedo boat, number 109, was rammed by a Japanese Destroyer, Amaqiri, and split in half killing two crew members, but leaving eleven alive, one of whom is future president John F. Kennedy.Those eleven crew members clung to debris for five hours before they found a coral island upon which to rest. Kennedy volunteered to swim back out to sea and flag down an American vessel. He was unable to find a ship and finally returned to the island, suffering greatly from his chronic back condition. He fell ill, so everyone waited until he was better to swim to a larger island, which turned out to be Cross Island. Two natives opn the island agreed to take a message that Kennedy had carved into a coconut shell. It read, “Nauru Is. Native knows posit. He can pilot. 11 alive need small boat.” The men were rescued and Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, for gallantry in action. The coconut eventually ended up in the Oval Office when he became President.

Arcadia University (Suggested by Christopher Klimovitz)
 
Just outside of Philadelphia, in a town called Glenside, sits a small private university that is home to a castle. This is the second campus that we have featured with a castle-like structure and this one is also haunted. Grey Towers was once home to the William Harrison Family and many of them seem to still be here after death. The university that now sits on that former property is Arcadia University and it has a history dating back to the mid-1800s. Our listener Chris Klimovitz is an alumni of Arcadia University and he joins us to share his experiences at the university and the stories of haunting legends and experiences connected to the school.

Glenside, Pennsylvania is a city just outside of northern Philadelphia. It sits within three townships with most of it being in Cheltenham Township. William Penn, for whom Pennsylvania is named, deeded out land grants for parts of Philadelphia and what would become Cheltenham to fifteen Englishmen. Two of them, Tobias Leech and Richard Wall, would become instrumental in the founding of the township in 1682. Wall's home is the oldest historic building still standing in the township. Humphrey Morrey was another early resident and he served as Philadelphia's mayor from 1691 to 1701. His son Richard would inherit his property and he would become one of the first Americans to free his slaves and distribute land to them. The area these former slaves settled in would first be named Guineatown since most were from Guinea. It later became Edge Hill and today is part of Glenside. One of the National Historic Landmarks in Cheltenham Township and Glenside is Grey Towers, which is part of the Arcadia University campus.

Arcadia University started out as many universities do, with a different name and at a different location. The school was established near the confluence of the Beaver and Ohio Rivers in a town named Beaver. The town had originally been founded as Fort McIntosh, which was built during the American Revolutionary War and named for General McIntosh. The town of Beaver wanted to have a school of higher learning and established a place for that in 1853 as Beaver Female Seminary. The school attained collegiate status in 1872 under the Methodist Episcopal Church and was named Beaver College. From 1872 to 1907, it allowed enrollment to men. The college moved in 1925 to the larger city of Jenkintown and switched affiliation to the Presbyterian Church. Enrollment skyrocketed with the move and the school actually had to put limits on enrollment.

After three years, it was decided by the trustees that they needed to buy more property and when the Grey Towers estate came up for sale, they bought the spacious grounds and buildings. The college would operate both campuses until the mid-1960s when everything was consolidated at the Grey Towers property. In 1973, men were allowed to enroll at the college again. In July of 2001, the college received university status and changed its name to Arcadia University. Today, the campus sits on 72 acres and has around 4,000 students enrolled. The university is known for its study abroad programs. Susan Savage, the former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma is a graduate of Arcadia as is actress Anna Smith whom you may know from the shows, "The West Wing" and "Nurse Jackie."

The Grey Towers Castle is the most prominent feature of the campus. Rosedale Hall stood here originally until 1893, when a fire gutted the home. At the time, William Welsh Harrison was living at Rosedale Hall. He had purchased the estate in 1881 when he was just 31-years-old. He had made his fortune as co-owner of the Franklin Sugar Refinery. After buying the property, Harrison enlarged the main house, improved the stables and added a gatehouse. He contracted architect Horace Trumbauer to help with the renovations. It was a good thing that the stables were improved because the family had to flee to them when the fire broke out in 1893. Harrison asked Trumbauer to come back and build the family a new home. Trumbauer let his imagination go and he decided to model the new estate after Alnwick Castle, the medieval seat of the Dukes of Northumberland in England.

Greystone was quarried and transported from nearby Chestnut Hill and Indiana limestone was used for exterior trim on the doors, windows and other elements. The interior features 44 rooms lined with hand-carved wood. Two Caen stone mantles were inspired by the Renaissance mantle in the royal Château de Blois. There is a central escutcheon that bears the coat-of-arms of Harrison's father. The decor that the Harrison's used for their estate matched the design of Grey Towers dating to the French Renaissance through the age of Louis XV. Interior elements that matched the style were walls lined with inset book cabinets, plaster frieze molding featuring cupids and garlands, walnut columns framing wood paneling on the walls and strapwork ceilings inspired by Fontainebleau, which was Napoleon's favorite French royal palace. Before 1952, there was also a circular conservatory on the south terrace that featured glass doors.

There was a Breakfast Room that had a narrow band of tapestry woven with scenes of a hunt and a ceiling of painted canvas panels between the ceiling beams. Like a typical castle, the Grey Towers features a Great Hall and this is where the mantles and fireplaces are located. Next to the Great Hall is the Billiard Room, which is paneled in oak, and next to that is the Mirror Room featuring a domed and gilded ceiling. The Ballroom was a package deal made in France and shipped to Glenside where it was installed. The ceiling has a scene that represents the four seasons as women and the zodiac cuts a path through the sky. The area between the ceiling and the walls has a vine motif featuring cupids, long-necked birds, and female figures.

The Ballroom leads into the Rose Room with decor from the later years of Louis XV’s reign. The Music Room had a ceiling painted in a Renaissance style and tapestries decorated the walls above the wainscoting. There was a fireplace in here that featured a tapestry of Euterpe, the Greek Muse of Music. William Baumgarten and Company Inc. of New York City crafted all of the tapestries and paintings in Grey Towers and this work was most likely completed in 1898. When the castle was finished, it was one of the largest homes in America at the time. Harrison died in 1927 and the family decided to sell the property. Beaver College purchased it for $712,500. In October 1985, Grey Towers Castle was declared a National Historic Landmark. The third floor houses dorms for freshmen and lectures are held in the Rose and Mirror Rooms. The rest of the castle has administrative offices and conference rooms. It also is home to a couple of ghosts, as is the rest of the campus.

Many hauntings have a background in strife, unhappiness or other negative emotions. The Harrison's marriage was an unhappy one. The couple were so estranged from each other that when the Castle was designed, they each had their own separate wing, so they would have little contact with each other. Mr. Harrison kept his bed warm with other women, one of whom was a maid that he secreted to him via secret passageways within the Castle. There was a circular room painted white in the Castle. One day, the maid found herself trapped in the room by Mrs. Harrison and she was holding a large butcher knife. Legend claims that the maid ended up dead and her blood was on the walls. Those walls would not come clean. So the walls were repainted white, but the red of the blood would eventually bleed through. The walls would not stop bleeding and so the room was painted red and renamed the Red Room.

The children are said to haunt their former nursery and people claim to see them reflected in the mirrors running about. A disembodied sound of a rocking chair is heard and some believe it is Mrs. Harrison rocking in that chair. The staircase is connected to a horrible story that has led to a haunting by one of the daughter's friends. This friend had come to visit one day. She was wearing a scarf and as she ran down the stiarcase, the scarf hooked onto the bannister and pulled her back, flipped her over the bannister and she was hanged by her scarf. When students are running down the stairs, they claim to feel something they can't see pushing back against them as if trying to slow them down. Many believe it is the spirit of this girl trying to prevent them from suffering the same fate.

An addition to this story is about a cover-up. The girl's mother obviously came looking for her when she did not return home. Harrison told the woman that the girls were playing in the fields and that he would join her to go fetch the girls. Harrison came home alone later and it is thought that he killed the mother. The athletic fields were built on these former fields and students claim to see the full-bodied apparition of a woman in a flowing dress crossing the field as though she is searching for her daughter. 
The Mirror Room on the first floor obviously houses several mirrors and it is a ballroom where dances are hosted. Legend claims that if you see one of the Harrison family members reflected back at you in a mirror it means you will marry the person with whom you are dancing. There is other activity that is unexplained. A pounding on the floor has been linked to Mr. Harrison who used to do that to tell the maids he needed them to bring him more whiskey.
 
 

The Communication and Art classes are held in Murphy Hall. This is where the stables had once been and students claim to hear the sounds of horses, especially at night. A young stable boy is thought to have died in the stables from an accident because his ghost has been seen on many occasions. He is around ten years old and appears at the end of hallways. When students ask him where his parents are, he disappears.

Chris shared many of the legends and haunting experiences that people have had on the campus. Do the spirits of the former residents and their employees still reside at the campus in the afterlife? Is Arcadia University haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 213 - Manhattanville College

 
Moment in Oddity - Man in Black Ghost Warns of Austin Dam Break

In the town of Austin, Pennsylvania, the Bayless Pulp & Paper Mill built a dam in 1909 to help power their facility. The dam was built across the Freeman Run in a very shoddy manner. It should have been at least 30 feet thick, but to cut costs, the company made it only 20 feet thick. The dam quickly bowed under the weight of water. In 1910, a strange man in black started appearing at the railroad depot in Austin. He looked so strange that railroad workers took to calling him a ghost. He was very tall, dressed all in black and would appear and disappear mysteriously. He was said to crawl between cars and run over the tops of them. Soon the townspeople were all talking about the Austin ghost as well. Then on September 30, 1911, the Austin Dam broke, killing at least 78 people. The Honesdale Citizen wrote in an article that published on October 9, 1912, "About a year after the arrival of the ghost, the huge dam broke, with the awful result that will always be remembered by those who witnessed the horrible scenes. In their great misfortune, following the flood, the Austin people who fortunately escaped with nothing valuable but their lives, forgot about a little thing like a ghost; and the ghost must have been scared out by the dam talk or lost its life in the flood." Was the Man in Black truly a ghost and was he a portend of coming disaster like the Mothman and the Gray Man? Or was this just a sneaky transient hanging out in the railroad cars who was indeed killed in the great flood? We will never know, but one thing is for sure, his timing certainly was odd!

This Month in History - Modern Bikini Introduced to Public

In the month of July, on the 5th, in 1946, the modern day bikini was introduced by French engineer Louis Réard at Piscine Molitor, a popular swimming pool in Paris. Micheline Bernardini modeled the bikini, which got its name from the Bikini Atoll, where post-war testing on the atomic bomb occurred. Bikini- like garments had been worn by women in antiquity, but such swim wear was considered risque in the 1940s. French women loved the design, but much of the public and religious organizations found the outfit to be scandalous. The bikini finally gained some traction when contestants in the first Miss World beauty pageant wore them in 1951. Actress Brigitte Bardot wore one on the beach at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953 and based on the attention she received, more actresses took to being photographed in bikinis. It eventually caught on and is, of course, wildly popular today. French fashion historian Olivier Saillard remarked that the bikini became popular because of "the power of women, and not the power of fashion."

Manhattanville College (Suggested by listener Bailey Pollack)

Manhattanville College is a small liberal arts college in New York. The college began as a Catholic women's school, but through the years it not only moved from its original location, but moved to co-education. The land where it sits today in Purchase has European settlers arriving as far back as the 1600s. The main point of interest on the campus is the original castle-like mansion known as Reid Hall. The structure induces shudders and is home for legends and a really creepy picture of some children. There are tales of ghostly nuns, cold spots, weird music and truly terrifying presences on the campus. Join us and our listener Bailey Pollack as we explore the history and hauntings of Manhattanville College!

The history of the campus dates back to the 1600s when the Siwanoy Tribe lived here under Chief Shanarocke. He sold the patch of land to John Budd of Long Island who built a gristmill on the eastern end of the plot. No official claim was filed with the government, so in 1695 a Native American named Pathungo reclaimed the land. he later sold it to John Harrison with the caveat that he could still harvest the whitewood trees on the land for canoe building. The area was known as "Harrison's Purchase" after that time. Quakers settled the plot in 1724. Today, the hamlet is named Purchase and it is part of the town of Harrison. *Fun fact: The Pepsi headquarters in Purchase is on the former Blind Brook Polo Club and Amelia Earhart flew her plane from the polo grounds.*

Ben Holladay was a business tycoon who co-owned the Ophir Silver Mine in Virginia City, Nevada and had invested in the Pony Express and Overland Express Coaches. He decided to build his mansion in 1864 on the land of the future campus and he so loved the West that he had bison shipped in from Wyoming and elk from Colorado. Wild flowers and trees from the West were planted and the stream was stocked with trout. People took to calling the estate "Buffalo Park," although Holladay had named it Ophir Park. Holladay built a chapel on the grounds in the Norman Gothic style for his wife's family and that chapel still stands today in the Ohnell Environmental Park on campus. The year 1873 brought tragedy in two ways. Ann died and Holladay lost his fortune in the Silver Panic that year.

John Roach owned Ophir Park for a little over three years, but did nothing with it, so the owner of the New York Tribune, Whitelaw Reid, bought it in 1888. He and his wife Elisabeth filled the mansion with the latest advances in technology, which included a telephone and electric wiring. Frederick Law Olmsted was hired for the landscape design. A month before the Reids moved into the mansion, a fire completely gutted the home. They were undeterred and decided to build on a grander scale using stone quarried from the property. The mansion was finished in 1892 and renamed Ophir Hall. The reception hall was covered in yellow Numidian African and Georgian pink marbles. There was a beautiful stained glass window above the front staircase and furniture from the country estate of a member of the house of Napoleon III was shipped from France. Further inside the home came an English style design in both Elizabethan and Renaissance.

Whitelaw Reid was away from the estate for much of the time he owned it, working as an ambassador and also running as vice president of the United States. He died in 1912 before a new wing that was being built was completed. In 1931, Mrs. Reid died and the doors of Ophir Hall were closed. The estate was gorgeous and filled with wonderful things, so it was a very sad time for the property. Their son, Ogden, died in 1947 and much of the estate was placed on the market. The local board fought about what to do with the property, but they were positive that they would not allow it to be turned into a shopping center. Soon it would become home for Manhattanville College.

The Academy of the Sacred Heart was founded as a Catholic boarding school for girls in 1841. Its first home was a three-story house on Houston Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In 1847, the academy relocated to an area north of New York City, near the village of Manhattanville. In 1917,the academy was chartered as a college and it took on the name Manhattanville College because of the village there. Two hundred and fifty acres of the Reid estate were purchased by Manhattanville in July of 1949 and the college was relocated. In less than a year and a half, everything was transferred and new buildings were built. The campus has around thirteen buildings in total. There is the Benzinger Dining Hall, Kennedy Gym, Founders Dormitory, Brownson Hall/Music Building, the library, Spellman Hall, O'Byrne Chapel, Dammann and Tenney Dorms, faculty housing, Berman Center and the Reid Castle became the administrative building.

Benzinger Hall was under construction during the Korean War and so the use of steel in building was heavily restricted. The college had to go to another plan and they ended up using prestressed concrete girders, which had only been used to build pressure pipes and bridges before. This worked so well that prestressed concrete girders became commonplace in construction. In 1971, the college became co-educational. Right before that, the Reid mansion was named Reid Hall and by 1974, it was on the National Register of Historic Places. The college has thrived and graduated thousands of students. It also has a reputation for being haunted.

Lauren Ziarko is Manhattanville’s Archivist, and she says that most of the stories and legends are just that, a bunch of stories with no historical fact. She said, “Unfortunately there is no truth to them, there have been no mysterious crimes, murders, sightings, etc. in the castle history. It is just spooky rumors that students like to pass on.” That being said, a campus security officer named Rich Biscardi told the following story, "Several years ago when the Manhattanville Cheerleading team was practicing in the West room, after practice, the girls all went to grab their phones and watches and realized that all of their time pieces had frozen, like time literally stopped until they left the west room.”

A freshman was walking on campus late one night and was passing the old small chapel behind the college and claimed, “I heard weird country music. I was really curious so I ventured inside. There was a buzz sound and then the music went back to normal. There was no one in there.” There are reports that nuns haunt the cemetery where they are buried and one nun in particular haunts Spellamn Hall. “It was three in the morning when someone tried to barge into the room. It was a strong force trying to open the door,” a resident reported. She said it was terrifying and many people believe the nun was just making her nightly rounds to check on the children.

A freshman had a scary experience at the graveyard: “I was walking by the grave yard late at night when something in the bushes kept following me. I looked around and nothing was there. But it felt real and scary.” She tried to take several photos, but all of them came out blurry. Another student took a picture in the graveyard a few years ago and to his surprise a figure appeared in the background.

Is Manhattanville College haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 202 - Appalachian State University

 
Moment in Oddity - Venezuela's Everlasting Storm
Suggested by Michael Rogers

The Guinness Book of Records claims that the highest incidence of lightning in the world takes place in an area at the mouth of the Catatumbo River in the western Venezuelan state of Zulia. It has been called "Venezuela's Everlasting Storm." There is so much lightning that residents of the nearby Lake Maracaibo need to shut their blinds against the flashes of light around 300 nights each year. They also refer to the ongoing storm as "River of Fire in the Sky." The lightning has become part of the identity of the state of Zulia and so they added a large lightning bolt to their flag. Scientists believe that the reason why the region has so much electricity in the air is because the conductivity of the air is increased from large supplies of methane coming from one of South America's largest oil fields. How much lightning does it take to get into the record book? Venezuela's Everlasting Storm is estimated to give off an incredible 3,600 flashes per hour and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - The Hindenburg Disaster

In the month of May, on the 6th, in 1937, the airship Hindenburg catches fire and crashes, killing 36 people. LZ129 Hindenburg was built by the Zeppelin Company in 1931 in Germany. This was the lead ship of the Hindenburg class, which was the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume. It had 15 Ferris wheel-like bulkheads and the gas cells were a new innovation by the Goodyear Company. There were small passenger quarters, a dining room and a large public area. The airship was originally designed to use helium, but export bans forced a redesign to hydrogen. Hydrogen was extremely dangerous, but no German airship had ever had an issue. That all changed on that fateful day in 1937. The destruction of the dirigible would cause Herbert Morrison to declare, "Oh, the humanity!" The Hindenburg was attempting to dock at a Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey at 7:25pm. No one knows where or how, but fire broke out and the Hindenburg was quickly engulfed in flames. The tail crashed into the ground first. Total crash time from start of fire to bow hitting the ground was around 30 seconds. There were 61 crew members and 36 passengers on board. Thirty-five people on the airship were killed along with one man on the ground. This brought to an abrupt end, the Airship Era.

Appalachian State University (Suggested and researched by listener Steven Pappas)

Boone, North Carolina is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, in an area of the state locals refer to as the "High Country". Known for it's beautiful climate, easily accessible outdoor activities, and easy-going attitude, Boone is a major vacation destination for those in NC and from all throughout the southeast United States. While many know it for its autumn views and its deep roots in the bluegrass community, there are those who know that there is more to this town than advertised. Boone and the surrounding areas seem to be a hotbed for strange occurrences, tragic deaths, and hauntings almost as chilling as the mountain air. One of these locations is Appalachian State University. Executive Producer and listener Steven Pappas joins us to share his experiences as a student there.

The settlement of the high country of NC is thought to date back as 13,500 years. Artifacts have been discovered that have matched dates reaching this far back and serve as an indicator of tribal activity in the mountains of the state. During Colonialism this was an area inhabited by the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes of American Indians, who were known to use the NC mountains for summer hunting. A treaty signed in 1770 between the British and the Cherokee prohibited the settlement of most of this region, however, settlers poured in anyway. In 1780, a British Militia leader named Major Patrick Ferguson ordered for the illegal settlers to lay down their weapons and vacate the area. This did not go over well with those who lived in the area. They formed a militia which they named the "Overmountain men" and marched against Ferguson's troops on October 7,1780 in Kings Mountain, NC which is located on the NC/SC border. It was a decisive victory for the settlers and the battle is credited with causing general Cornwallis to pull out of NC. This preceded the American victory at the battle of Yorktown in 1781. After the revolution, many veterans were given land as payment for their service and they returned to continue settling the area.

People continued to flock to the area in the years following the revolution. There was plenty of game, resources, and cheap land to be had. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of the area. The settlers set up an economy trading hides, and other resources like timber and stone across the state borders with TN and VA. Daniel Boone, though born in PA, had moved with his family to the Yadkin Valley area of NC as a young man in 1750. He became a long hunter and chose to spend mush of his time hunting in the high country. He set up camp in a small town named Meat Camp just north of modern day Boone, NC. Between 1750 and 1779, Daniel Boone hunted in this area, until moving with his wife and children to Kentucky. Due to his impact on the area, the town of Boone, NC was formed in 1872.

Modern day Boone, NC sits on the banks of the Watauga river (which in Cherokee means "Beautiful Water"). It is the county seat of Watauga county and sits at an elevation of 3,332ft. It was serviced by a small railroad that cut through the town (nicknamed Tweetsie) until a large flood in 1940. Most of the tracks were washed away by the flood waters and it was decided that they would not be replaced. Boone now has a local theme park, open in the summer, called Tweetsie Railroad. It is an attraction primarily for small children that essentially acts as an interactive cowboy town. Boone also plays host to "Horn in the West". This is an outdoor drama that depicts the lives of early settlers in the area, as well as explores the history of Daniel Boone himself.  This production as been put on every summer since 1952. Boone is also the center of bluegrass music and culture in NC. Doc Watson, one of the most pivotal bluegrass creators in music history, was a native of Boone. Old Crow Medicine Show was also discovered in Boone. While many may not know their name, they wrote a song that was covered by a successful country artist in 2011, which reached the top of the country charts. It is titled "Wagon Wheel".

At the center of the town sits Appalachian State University. Blanford B. Dougherty and his brother Dauphin D. Dougherty, recognized that northwestern North Carolina did not have a good place of education. They gathered a group together to work towards building a school. They convinced their father, Daniel B. Dougherty, and another man named J. F. Hardin, to donate land for the building of that school. They constructed a wood frame structure that cost them $1,000, which they raised from nearby citizens. The Dougherty Brothers decided to co-principal the school and it opened in the fall of 1899. They named it Watauga Academy. The academy offered three grades and enrolled 53 students that first year. Dauphin was convinced that they could eventually get the state to fund a bigger institution. He went to the capitol, pleaded his case and the Appalachian Training School for Teachers was established. The school opened on October 5, 1903 with $2,000 from the state and 325 students.

In 1925, the school name was changed to Appalachian State Normal School. This was a two year school for educating teachers. It later expanded to four years and again had the name changed to Appalachian State Teachers College. Through all these changes Blanchard Dougherty was there. He presided over the school for fifty years. Dr. William H. Plemmons became president of the shcool in 1955 and he oversaw the transformation from a single-purpose teachers college into a multipurpose regional university. Twenty-five construction projects took place during his tenure and he became known as the builder president. Enrollment grew to 5,000 students at this time. In 1966, fire destroyed the administration building and in 1971 the university became part of the University of North Carolina system. Dr. Herbert W. Wey became president around that time and the innovation he brought earned Appalachian State national recognition as an institution of change and enrollment was doubled to 9,500.

The university would eventually garner recognition in U.S. News & World Report and other publications as a top comprehensive university. The university’s emphasis on international education led the American Council on Education to recognize Appalachian as a model institution for international studies. TIME magazine named Appalachian a “College of the Year” in 2001. Today, the university has one of the highest elevations among American schools and enrolls around 18,000 students. 

There are many hauntings in the high country of NC that are well known. We have already covered the Moses Cone Manor in episode 62 of this show. While that is a story everyone in town talks about, there are others that are equally as eerie. The Green Park Inn is located about 10 minutes outside of Boone and about 2 Minutes from the Moses Cone Manor. It was built in the 1880s and operated continuously until 2009. At this point it was bought out, renovated, and has now reopened. Gone with the Wind was written by Margaret Mitchell at the inn as well as hosting Herbert Hoover and Annie Oakly. The inn is supposedly home to the apparition of a woman who was killed in the hotel. The third floor has seen all kinds of strange activity, but the most common are reports of a woman in room 318. She is seen at night by many guests. This just so happens to be the room where a young woman committed suicide after a fight with her partner. People also smell pipe tobacco in this room, leading them to believe it is residual energy from the lover who drove her to her death. There have been so many sightings that the employees keep a "ghost log" at the front desk for visitors to write down experiences.

While there are other hauntings in the high country (Such as a dorm haunting at Lees-Mcrae college or an abandoned hospital in Jefferson, NC), many stories come out of Appalachian State University itself. Over it's years of operation, it has been the host to plenty of tragedy, which may explain why there is so much going on here. Many people have blamed the long winters and periods of extended cold and darkness for the number of suicides and deaths on the campus. (I know the year after I graduated they had 11 deaths, 9 of which were suicide. One girl went missing for a month before they found here hanging in the University woods. Just heartbreaking stuff.) The most famous paranormal activity on campus is in East hall. As a student I heard stories of a suicide pact where 6 students killed each other in the basement to open a portal to hell. Turns out, from talking to historians on campus, a student killed himself in the basement. There are reports of odd footsteps which seem like they are coming from inside walls or where there is no hallway. There is the apparition of a young man who has been seen in the 3rd floor bathroom causing all sorts of panic. There are also reports of floating lights seen hovering in the windows of the basement.

Across the road from East used to be Cofey hall. It has since been torn down, but when I was there I was told about a ghost who the professors called Max. He had hung himself in his room on the second floor in the 1970s. In that room, I think it was 204, anyone who lived there reported the lights turning on and off in the middle of the night, the TV volume shooting up and down, or the the TV coming on and off all night too. They considered Max a friendly spirit, but just a little mischievous. No reports in the building that now stands in its place.

I lived in Eggers hall my freshman year, and I was told by a school historian, that a girl had thrown herself from the 9th floor in the mid 1990s. While I was there, friends who lived upstairs told me about all kinds of problems with showers turning on and off and doors slamming. Also that year, a large crack appeared in the building around the 9th floor. The worked on it for about 5 months, during which time they built us a wooden tunnel to walk through because bricks were falling left and right. I didn't participate, but people made all kinds of morbid jokes about the sound of the bricks hitting the tunnel being the young woman throwing herself off the building again.

IG Greer is a classroom building that has a large auditorium in it. This is now used for large classes, but it used to be the original school of music on campus. The story goes, there was a young couple who was engaged to be married. She was a piano major and her fiance would sit in the same seat every time she had a recital to ease her nerves. She could always look up, see him, and relax. Well, he had to go down to Wilkesboro for a wedding related meeting on the day of one of her recitals, but he assured her he would be back in time. Right before the show, she saw him slip in and sit in his seat. She went on with the performance, but afterward she received word that he had been killed in a car accident on the way back to Boone that evening. Eerie right? Well now that seat behaves oddly. It doesn't seem to go up and down at the will of the person trying to sit in it and, without fail, people report getting sick after sitting in it during classes or movies.

Last, but not least, we have the one I have some experience with. During my time at App, I was a leader in my campus ministry. We had a small building on campus and it is where we spent the majority of our down time playing ping pong, or watching TV. It's where I met my wife. Anyway, while it wasn't supposed to be shared with incoming students, we all knew the building had a bit of a dark history. The campus minister who came before the minister who preceded ours had died in the building. He had hung himself in the stairwell one night, and the students found him the next day. Well, let's just say weird stuff went on there sometimes. Just sounds that came from nowhere more than anything, but God help you if you were in the building alone at night and had to go up the stairs. I always felt something watching me, or like I wasn't alone in that stairwell. It still gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

Is Appalachian State University haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 196 - Coe College

 
Moment in Oddity - Anti-revenant Practices From the Medieval Era

Back in the 1960s, some human bones were excavated from the medieval English village Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire. They had peculiar marks on them that indicated the bones had been broken, chopped and burned post-mortem. Recently, researchers have begun new studies of these bones and reported their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The report indicated that people believed in revenants, which are re-animated corpses, all the way back to the 11th century. They believe that these markings indicate some kind of practice to keep dead people from rising. This would be the first evidence of such practices. The bones date back to between the 11th and 14th centuries and indicate they had all been decapitated and dismembered. Some might argue that this is actually evidence of cannibalism, but experts point out that the cuts do not line up with butchery for survival cannibalism. The cuts do not occur at the joints and animal bones found in the same areas do not have these distinctive markings. Head researcher Simon Mays said, "It shows us a dark side of medieval beliefs and provides a graphic reminder of how different the medieval view of the world was from our own." Our listener Jenni from Australia points out that "they chopped up their dead to rush the decomposition. They believed that the soul was released when the body was skeletons. I studied these when I completed my thesis on deviant burials. Whatever the case may be, medieval beliefs certainly were odd.

This Month in History - Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and William Dawes

In the month of April, on the 18th, in 1775, Paul Revere and William Dawes conducted the Midnight Ride to warn patriots that the British were coming. The two men rode out of Boston about 10 p.m. heading for Lexington and Concord. Concord was the temporary home of the Provincial Congress. A large armory stored munitions here as well and Revere and leaders in the patriot movement suspected that the British were planning a raid there. A plan was laid out for Revere to arrange for the placement of signal lanterns in the belfry of Old North Church. This spot could easily be seen across the Charles River. The signal would be that if one lantern was lit, then the British were coming by a land route. If two lanterns were lit it meant that the British were coming by boat on the Charles River. Early on the evening of April 18th, a stable boy informed Revere that the British were preparing boats for crossing the Charles. Revere was joined on his run by a young shoemaker named William Dawes. They split up to ensure one of them made it. Revere narrowly escaped capture by two British soldiers and Dawes slipped past the guards on Boston Neck. A third man named Dr. Samuel Prescott joined them later and he split off at a roadblock. He knew the countryside intimately. He was the only one of the three to make it all the way to Concord and raise the alarm.

Coe College (Suggested by: Zoe Timmerman)

Coe College is located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The college began in the 1850s in of allplaces, the parlor of a reverend. The school grew from religious studies to a liberal arts college that was a pioneer in the education of women. The college suffered growing pains through the years and nearly closed, but today it thrives. There are tales of hauntings on the campus, with the most well known being the story of Helen and her spirit. Our listener Zoe Timmerman joins us to share her experiences. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Coe College.

Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa. It was originally the territory of the Fox and Sauk tribes. The Fox or Meskwaki tribe had lived in the Great Lakes area, but French colonization pushed them south. The first settler to establish himself in Cedar Rapids was Osgood Shepherd in 1838. He built a log cabin home for his wife and children and father. People coming to the area would stop here because of its position on the east bank of the river and people started calling the homestead “Shepherd’s Tavern.” While Shepherd was an accommodating host, rumors circulated that he entertained horse-thieves and that perhaps his affinity for these villains was that he himself stole horses. Some years later he was arrested in another state for horse stealing and sent to the penitentiary. He reformed and became a religion professor. William Stone arrived in the area in 1838 as well and he named the town Columbus. It was renamed in 1841 for the Cedar River that was nearby. It had rapids and so the city became Cedar Rapids. It was incorporated on January 15, 1849.
 *Fun Fact: Cedar Rapids is the largest corn-processing city in the world and former home to Grant Wood who painted American Gothic.*

Speaking of art, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art had a ghost visitation at one time. The building had been Cedar Rapids town library until 1985. A woman named Hazel frequented the library in the 1960s. So it was not unusual for her to visit the library, but on this particular day, it freaked out patrons and employees. The reason why was because Hazel had died in a fire at 4 a.m. that same morning. She was not seen again. Another haunted place in the city is Oak Hill Cemetery. The ghost of a little Czech girl named Tillie has been seen in the cemetery and she is usually carrying a lit candle. There is a mausoleum that she favors and people claim that she attempts to pull visitors into that mausoleum.

The location that harbors the most famous haunt in Cedar Rapids is Coe College. The college began in of all places, the home of a reverend. Williston Jones was a Presbyterian pastor and he invited a young man named George Carroll to study in his parlor. Soon, seventeen other men joined Carroll. He called his school "The School for the Prophets." In 1853, he asked the congregation to help raise $1500 to send three of the boys to seminary. A farmer named Daniel Coe approached Rev. Jones and suggested he open his own seminary. Coe gave him the money, some of which he had to borrow, with two stipulations. The seminary had to have a farm, so the students could support themselves and the education had to be opened up to women as well. There is also a legend about the money that claims the money that was raised came from New York west, sewed into the petticoat of a woman who arrived in Iowa by stagecoach. Coe's money was used to buy two downtown lots for the school and 80 acres of land for the farm outside of town. The school was incorporated in 1853 and was known first as Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute. In 1868, the trustees for the school hoped to acquire the Parsons estate and they changed the name to Parsons Seminary. That attempt failed and the college suffered financial difficulties. In 1875, the school became the Coe Collegiate Institute to honor Daniel Coe.

By 1875, the school was almost defunct and a push was made to change the school from a private institution to a public one. With all of the college's early trouble, it took 31 years before it graduated any students. Those students were E. Belle Stewart and Stephen W. Stookey. By 1901, the college had three buildings: Old Main (1868), Williston Hall (1881) and Marshall Hall (1900). Williston was a red brick dormitory for the women that had a veranda and hot and cold running water. Old Main housed mainly administrative and classrooms. Marshall was named for the second president of the school and was emblazoned with a Latin statement that meant "No Day Without a Line" and it housed classrooms. The gymnasium was constructed in 1904. By 1909 there was a real need for another building that was mostly financed by Andrew Carnegie. This would be the Science Hall.

The T. M. Sinclair Memorial Chapel was built in 1911. It was gothic in style and became the heart of the campus. T. M. Sinclair was the founder of the Sinclair Meat Packing Company. He used his wealth to liquidate the debt from Parsons Seminary and the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute. The property was then handed over to the Iowa Presbyterian Synod. The school was then known as Coe College. *Fun Fact: Coe College claims the shortest name of any American institution of higher education.* In 1907, Coe earned accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Universities. The widow of Ralph Voorhees financed the building of a new female dormitory that would carry the Voorhees name. It was completed in 1918 and had a drawing room, student suites and a swimming pool. Up to this point, the men had no dormitory, but it was decided that one should finally be built after Voorhees Hall was done. Greene Hall was completed in 1938 for this purpose. The Robert W. Stewart Memorial Library was built in 1929. Peterson Hall was built in the 1960s and since the late 1980s, the campus has doubled in size. McCabe Hall was built in 2005 and is named for former Coe President Joseph E. McCabe.

We are joined by former Coe College alumni Zoe Timmerman and she is going to share the haunting legend of Helen from the college.

Is the spirit of Helen still wandering the dorm hallways and does she haunt the old grandfather clock that was given to the school as her memorial? Is Coe College haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 192 - Penn State University

 
Moment in Oddity - Lord Tod Wadley
(Suggested by: Kelly Helter)

Lord Tod Wadley was a doll made by the Steiff Toy Company. The company was based in Germany and started by Margarete Steiff in 1880 and specialized in plush toys like teddy bears. Lord Tod Wadley was a male doll that stood over a foot tall. He was given to Marion Barbara 'Joe' Carstairs by her girlfriend, Ruth Baldwin. Joe Carstairs was a British eccentric heiress to the Standard Oil family who made a name for herself in power boat racing in the 1930s. In her day, she was known as the fastest female speed boat racer in the world. Before she got into that, she served during World War I in France with the American Red Cross, driving ambulances. She helped rebury the war dead after the war ended and later in Dublin, during the Irish War of Independence, she served with the Women's Legion Mechanical Transport Section. She was very different for her time. She tattooed her arms, dressed like a man and was openly gay. She had affairs with numerous famous women including Dolly Wilde - who was Oscar Wilde's niece - Greta Garbo, Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich. She bought an island named Whale Cay to retire on and she ruled there like a queen. But what truly made her unique was Lord Tod Wadley. Joe was never without the doll, unless she was racing, because she feared losing him. She treated the doll as though it were a living child. And she spoiled it with gifts. She bought him cowboy outfits, dolls of his own, Italian made shoes, a small wristwatch, sailor suits, revolvers, a Bible and suits from Savile Row. Sculptures were made in his honor, along with portraits. One portrait featured Lord Tod Wadley before a mirror with his reflection that was titled "Narcissus." Joe talked to the doll and when she finally died in Florida at the age of 93, she had the doll cremated with her. Having dolls and toys as an adult is normal, but keeping a doll and caring for it as if it were a living child and as your only companion, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Nazi General Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff Attempts to Assassinate Hitler

In the month of March, on the 21st day, in 1943, Nazi General Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff attempts to assassinate Hitler. Throughout World War II, there were many attempts to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Nazi General Gersdorff was one of those men who participated in an elaborate plan to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The Nazis had intercepted a bunch of Soviet weapons and they were stored at an armory in Berlin. Gersdorff was a weapons expert, so he was tasked with taking Hitler on a guided tour of the former Soviet arsenal. He realized that this was a great opportunity to try to kill the Nazi leader since he would be right there next to him. Gersdorff stuffed two bombs in his pockets and began the tour. This was going to be a suicide mission. The plan was to ignite the fuses, which would take ten minutes to detonate and before they exploded, Gersdorff was going to lock Hitler into an embrace. As it turned out, Hitler was in a big hurry when he arrived at the armory. He had no plans to stay for ten minutes and so there was not enough time to detonate the bombs. Gersdorff had to make a mad dash for the toilet where he secretly detonated the bombs and his plan remained unknown to Hitler, who would have had him killed. Gersdorff spent much of the rest of his service supervising the construction of mass graves following a series of mass executions of Poles perpetrated by the NKVD, which was a clandestine Soviet police organization.

Penn State University

Penn State University is a part of the Big Ten East and has 24 campuses across the state of Pennsylvania. Not bad for a school that had small beginnings and only 64 undergraduate students. Penn State was one of the first land grant universities in America and was founded as an agricultural school. The main campus is situated in the Nittany Valley between Nittany Mountain and Muncy Mountain. The university sits on a limestone shelf, which lends itself to capturing energy and it is said that this may be one of the most haunted universities in America. Matt Swayne, author of America's Haunted Universities, joins us to share stories of spirits that continue here in the afterlife. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Penn State!


Pennsylvania State University has meager beginnings as a farmer's college. A man named James Irvin was a prominent ironmaster and agriculturalist in the 1800s. He entered politics and was elected twice as a representative to Congress for the 14th congressional district in Pennsylvania. He ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 1847, but did not win. Irvin was also a landowner and had several acres in Centre County. He donated 200 acres for the founding of the Farmer's High School, which was chartered in 1855 by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was one of the nation's first colleges of agricultural science. The land was located at the junction of Penns, and Nittany Valleys near the geographical centre of the State. Irvin was passionate about mixing agriculture and science and had a certain vision for the new school.

Irvin wrote to the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society that "If we would add dignity to Manual labor, if we would have it held in honor by the Community; we must associate it with Science, and if we would lessen the expense of acquiring scientific knowledge, so as to bring the Cost within the means of the farming Community, we must connect its acquisition with manual labor – These as I understand are leading objects of the Farmers High School of Pennsylvania; and if, as has been suggested such an institution properly organized, with the aid of the Surplus funds of your Society and a reasonable appropriation from the State, can afford to the young men of Pennsylvania, able and willing to work, (when work is required of all, and esteemed honorable) a scientific practical education, at an expense of less that Seventy five dollars per annum, it will be productive of benefits to the community, the full extent of which time only can develop, and future generations only tell."

Evan Pugh was the founding president. He planned a curriculum based on the scientific education he had received in Europe. He joined other leaders in supporting the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act through Congress in 1862. The act enabled states to sell federal land, invest the proceeds, and use the income to support colleges "where the leading object shall be, without excluding scientific and classical studies ... to teach agriculture and the mechanic arts [engineering] ... in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in all the pursuits and professions of life." The Farmers High School would then become Pennsylvania's land-grant institute and the name was changed to Agricultural College of Pennsylvania. In 1874, the college would become Pennsylvania State College. The mission of Penn State has been research, teaching and public service and you will hear Matt talk about that a little later.

In the 1880s, Penn State expanded the curriculum to include far more than just agricultural science. Liberal arts were introduced, along with engineering. This was championed by then president George W. Atherton. He and his wife will come up again later when we get into talking about hauntings. The early 1900s brought cooperative extension and outreach programs, which grew into other campuses branching out across the state. This would give students a better chance of attending the university during the Great Depression. In the 1950s, research brought advances in building insulation, dairy science, diesel engines and other specialized fields. It was also in the 50s when Penn State would officially become a university under President Milton S. Eisenhower, who was the brother President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1967, the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center was established as a college of medicine with a hospital in Hershey.

In 2000, Penn State merged with the Dickinson School of Law and it also graduated its first students enrolled in the World Campus. The university has had a huge influence in the state. It is the largest school in the state and has the second-largest impact on the state economy, generating an economic effect of over $17 billion on a budget of $2.5 billion. A main outreach of the university is philanthropy as well. Its Grand Destiny campaign raised over $1.3 billion. Unfortunately, Penn State has a black mark in its recent history because of an assistant football coach employed by the university named Jerry Sandusky. As a time stamp on this episode, just this last week in March of 2017, former Penn State President Graham B. Spanier was found guilty of child endangerment related to Sandusky's crimes. Those crimes were sexual abuse on boys that he had groomed thorough a charity he started called The Second Mile. The scandal broke in 2011, but Sandusky's crimes went on for decades. And several university officials were implicated for covering up or not reporting the crimes. As was the case with the former President.

Now we are joined by Matt Swayne who works at the university and has documented the hauntings going on there:

The hauntings according to Matt Swayne:

"Penn State's haunted heritage goes way back—the whole way back to one of the oldest buildings on campus, in fact. Old Botany, the quaint, red brick cottage tucked off of Pollack Road, looks innocent enough, but masks, if you believe some ghost-hunting buffs, a range of supernatural phenomena. In one legend, Frances Atherton, the wife of George Atherton, uses the windows in the top floor of Old Botany to keep an eye on her husband’s grave, which rests across the street from Old Botany. As students trudge along Pollock Road—one of the busiest walkways through campus—they cast an eye on the upper-floor windows, half-expecting to see the worried gaze of Frances looking back at them.

One of the most haunted spots on the University Park campus is Schwab Auditorium, a theatre that seats a little more than 900 people with enough room left over for at least two or three ghosts. People have reported spotting a few apparitions—including the ghost of a janitor—in the auditorium over the years, according to Rachel Moeser, president of the 40-member Paranormal Research Society, one of the nation's first university clubs formed to study the paranormal. Her team has scoured the theatre looking for evidence of the haunting and who's behind it. She says that some speculate that Charles Schwab—the industrialist, not the stockbroker—is haunting the auditorium. A former Penn State trustee who funded the construction of the auditorium, Schwab loved supporting the arts and going to the theatre so much that he has stuck around long after his lifetime passes expired, or so the theory goes. The theatre isn’t haunted only by industrialist-sized theatre goers, though, according to Moeser. "I think Schwab [Auditorium] is active," says Moeser. "There seems to be the ghost of a janitor, and we think there is a female spirit in the theatre." Over the years, students, staff, and faculty claim to have heard strange noises echoing from the building’s upper floors. They say they hear footsteps, feel scratches, and see objects moving across the floor. When someone goes upstairs to check, there is no sign of a presence—at least a human presence. Because of the confusion about exactly who—or what—is doing the haunting in Schwab, students gave the auditorium’s paranormal presence a generic nickname, “Schwaboo.”

While ghost stories about university presidents, founders, and donors haunting the halls of campus buildings are not unique in higher education ghost-lore, Penn State has a spirit that separates it from the rest of its collegiate competition—the ghost of a mule.
 Born in 1855, the same year as Penn State’s traditionally observed founding, Old Coaly traveled from his native Kentucky to, among many other duties-as-assigned, labor tirelessly at lugging limestone blocks from a quarry at the corner of what is now the southeast corner of the Old Main lawn to the construction site of the original Old Main.The mule quickly became a favorite of the students at the Farm School—which was what most people called the University at the time—and almost became the school’s mascot. It’s true that, but for a twist here or there in campus history, we may be watching the Nittany Mule do pushups at Beaver Stadium during home football games. Old Coaly was so loved and appreciated by the entire University community that his bones were preserved once he shuffled off to the great pasture in the sky on New Year’s Day of 1893. But he wasn’t quite ready to retire. It seemed every place where Old Coaly’s bones were displayed—in Watts Hall, for example—ghost stories would follow. Students claimed to hear, usually during the dead of night, the sound of plodding hooves thudding down dark, empty halls and the occasional braying of a mule echoing through the silence. Most people suspected a prankster was behind the "paranor-mule" phenomenon. The spirit of Old Coaly, by the way, seems pretty content now in his current resting spot in the HUB-Robeson Center. At least, no one has reported seeing the ghost of a mule, or heard the rumble of hooves in the HUB so far."

Are there spirits wandering around Penn State, that include a donkey? Is Pennsylvania State University haunted? That is for you to decide.

HGB Ep. 182 - Denton, Texas Universities - UNT and TWU

 
Moment in Oddity - Hobo Marks

Hobos first appeared in America after the end of the Civil War. Young people may not know what or who a hobo is, but for many of us older people, the hobo was a favorite Halloween costume. It may have been a politically incorrect costume, but it was a throwback to a time when homeless men followed the train tracks across America, looking for work. Many wore ragged clothes and slung a pack over their shoulder with all their earthly belongings. It is said, "A hobo wanders and works, a tramp wanders and dreams and a bum neither wanders or works." By 1911, it was estimated there were 700,000 hobos in America. Many Americans took pity on these men and helped them along the way. One of those people was my very own great-grandmother. She participated in a network that used Hobo Marks. Hobo Marks were symbols made on homes in either charcoal or chalk to indicate that this home was welcoming. Different symbols would relate that this place will give food for work, or there is a doctor here, or there is a kind woman living here, or you can sleep in the barn here, or there is a good chance of getting money here. Some marks signaled negative experiences as well such as, this man is dishonest or nothing doing here. Most homeowners probably had no idea what the symbol on their home meant, but it is a unique piece in America's history and certainly is odd!

This Month in History - FDR Assassination Attempt

In the month of February, on the 15th day in 1933, an assassination attempt on newly elected U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was thwarted, but the mayor of Chicago was killed. The assassination attempt occurred in Miami, Florida. The gunman was Italian immigrant Giuseppe Zangara. President Roosevelt was giving an impromptu speech that night from the back of an open car at the Bayfront Park area. Zangara was armed with a .32-caliber US Revolver Company pistol. He fired off a shot, grabbing the attention of the crowd gathered for the speech. Several people grabbed him as he fired off four more shots. Five people were hit, including Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was standing next to FDR. Roosevelt cradled the mortally wounded mayor as the car sped to the hospital. He told the President, "I'm glad it was me instead of you." That statement was engraved on Cermak's tombstone. Zangara was arrested and he confessed. He plead guilty to four counts of attempted murder. After Cermak died, he pleaded guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death and met that fate in the electric chair on March 20, 1933.


Denton, Texas Universities - University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University (Suggested by and research assistance from listener Ellen Girdwood)

Denton, Texas is home to two universities that date back for decades. Both universities have undergone several name changes over the years. Today, they are known as the University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University. The former had its start as a private teacher's college and the latter as a girls industrial school. Over the years, suicides and tragic circumstances have led to hauntings in several buildings on both campuses. Join us and our listener Ellen Girdwood as we share the history and hauntings of UNT and TWU!

A man from Kentucky named William S. Peters came to the area of modern day Denton in Northern Texas and he obtained a land grant from the Texas Congress in the mid 1800s. He called the plot of land Peters Colony after himself. The Texas Legislature later voted in 1846 to form Denton County where Peters Colony had been. The county and town were named Denton after a preacher and lawyer named John B. Denton who was killed in 1841 during a skirmish with the Kichai people. The city was laid out in 1857 and it was incorporated in 1866. The city became an agricultural center and the Texas and Pacific Railway arrived in 1881. This brought an influx of people to the area and with that came the need for centers of education. In 1890, the North Texas Normal College was established. It would later become the University of North Texas. In 1903, the Girls' Industrial College was founded. It is now Texas Woman's University.

The establishment of a girls industrial school took several years before the Texas legislature approved it in 1901. The original name was Texas Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls of the State of Texas in the Arts and Sciences, which, thankfully, changed two years later to the Girls' Industrial College. Seventy acres of land in Denton were bought for $16,050. Early classes that were offered consisted of traditional courses like English and Science, but also many domestic classes like housekeeping, sewing and cooking. Other interesting areas of study included poultry keeping, telegraphy, political economy, stenography, beekeeping, Industrial Arts like illustrating, design, modeling, carving, and engraving. The University changed its name in 1934 to Texas State College for Women to reflect higher education for women in the state. Today, it is known as Texas Woman's University and that name came in 1957. The nursing program also became the first nationally accredited program in the state of Texas in the 1950s. Men were welcomed into the health sciences graduate school starting in 1972. In 1994, all programs were opened to qualified men, but 90% of the student population remains female.

One of the interesting buildings on the campus is the Little Chapel-in-the-Woods. It was built in 1939 and dedicated by Eleanor Roosevelt. Students designed and created the artwork in the building, which includes the woodwork, the lighting, flooring and stained glass windows. Scenes depicted in the windows feature women teaching, nursing, speaking, writing and dancing. The Little Chapel-in-the-Woods was named one of Texas’ most outstanding architectural achievements. The chapel hosted many weddings and the TWU original bridal book contains thousands of names of couples who were married here. This building plays host to one of our Women in White. A legend claims that a bride was jilted on her wedding day and in her grief, she killed herself in the chapel. People claim to see her wandering the clump of woods near the chapel. 

Guinn Hall is a residence hall and is the tallest building in the city of Denton. The name Guinn comes from the 6th President of TWU. Stark Hall is another towering residence hall and it was the tallest building until Guinn Hall was built. It was from a ninth story balcony at Guinn Hall that a female student jumped in 2000. She is said to haunt that floor and the Guinn Hall balconies are closed off. Stoddard Hall used to be a residence hall and it is said that a student committed suicide in her room. People claim to feel cold spots and the floors creak as though something unseen is walking on them. People claim to have seen a face in one of the windows of the Art Building, which was built in 1996, when it is supposed to be empty and the Smith-Carroll Building has lights that turn off and on when nobody is inside.

Some of the stranger stories about this campus involve the Blagg-Huey Library and the oldest building on campus, Old Main. In the library, it is said that a student disappeared and it is believed that somehow he was buried in one of the white columns in the 1990s. A professor killed himself in Old Main. Apparently, some other professors arrived at the building to tell him that he was receiving a reward. They had to search for him and when they found him, he was dressed in a way that did not meet approvalin the 1950s. He was wearing a dancing gown that was pink, pink pumps and clutching a pink purse. The group left horrified and the cross-dressing professor hanged himself from the third story railing. There is also an unsolved crime involving a woman named Virginia Carpenter who disappeared in 1948 outside of Brackenridge Hall.

On Sept. 16, 1890, Joshua C. Chilton established the Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute with 70 students and he said of the school, “It will be our aim to become leaders in the education of the young men and women of Texas, fitting them to creditably fill the most important positions in business and professional circles. We desire the cooperation of all who believe in higher education and who want to see our state in the very front of intellectual as well as material progress.” The school was opened in a rented space above a hardware store. The first building was finished in 1891 and was called the Normal Building. A fence encircled it to keep out livestock, so that is how rural the location was at the time. Boarding houses around the college were used to house students.

The university was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college. In 1901, it began to receive funding from the state and was no longer private. The University of North Texas has undergone six name changes before becoming UNT in 1988. Those names were Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute (1890-1894), North Texas Normal College (1894-1901), North Texas State Normal College  (1901-1923), North Texas State Teachers College (1923-1949), North Texas State College (1949-1961), North Texas State University (1961-1988).

UNT has been known for its diversity. It broke down barriers by admitting women from day one. It was also one of the first universities to desegregate. The school established the first jazz studies program. In the 1920s, Saturday Night Stage Shows debuted. These were directed by ’Fessor Floyd Graham and featured his Aces of Collegeland band. The music program became quite famous at this time due to those shows and radio broadcasts. UNT also became one of the first universities to offer adult education programs and these master's programs helped push forward faculty research. During World War II, the campus served as a place for the military to conduct exercises. The 1950s would see the first African-American students enroll and doctorate programs were begun. The University has continued to expand and grow through the years.

Several locations are haunted at UNT. Bruce Hall was first opened in 1949 as an all-female dorm. It is the oldest residence hall and is now coed. It mainly houses music and art students, hippies and other strange people (wiki’s words not mine). It's close to the music building, which is probably why. People who live here are called "brucelings." Celebrities Norah Jones and Meat Loaf were rumored to have lived in Bruce hall when they went to UNT. A ghost named Wanda is said to haunt the building. She particularly likes the Pool Hall, attic and 4th floor D hall. The story goes that she attended school in the 1950’s and got pregnant and that she died in the attic, either from a botched abortion or suicide. She pulls pranks and seems to be friendly. She slams doors and turns the showers off and on.

An elevator in the hall is said to be haunted by the apparition of an elderly elevator repairman. Someone encountered him outside the elevator and he said he was going to fix it. This person told him that it hadn't worked for 30 years and the repairman said it was a mistake. He walked away and the student followed him. Once the man turned the corner, he disappeared. Perhaps this repairman met his end in the Boiler Room , which is reputed to be haunted. No one knows who this is but “he” stays in the basement and opens the rooms heavy metal industrial doors after they are closed.

Chilton Hall has a statue of a guy from that is just a torso and it is called "The Student." It was found in the foundation and they put it on display. Hauntings started after that and activity increases in October. Chilton Hall had been an all men’s dorm. Today it is an administration building. The story goes that a guy jumped out of one of the windows and killed himself. Caitlin Edgar, who works in the building, had an experience. Her job was to check the security cameras and last year when this article was written, she saw a student walking down the aisles in one of the classrooms. There was not a class scheduled that day and it was after hours. The door has alarms and locks that open when an employee punches in the disarming codes. When she opened the door, the student was not there. How could he have gotten inside and where did he go?

The Health Center is haunted. Campus police are constantly called to the building in regards to sightings of a young man with blonde hair who wears blue jeans and no shirt. Some people link this to the unearthing of the “The Student” statue for some reason. Sycamore Hall is said to be the most haunted buildings in America. Investigator Zach Prader said that paranormal activity in this building is worse than Alcatraz, Area 51, and the Lizzie Borden house. His team looked into the history and possible reason for the hauntings. They concluded that the library was buried on Romanian Gypsy burial ground, which is traditionally 23x more spiritually active than Native American burial ground. One administrator was quoted as saying, “If you ever need to check out a book at the Sycamore Hall library, bring a friend. We don’t want to mop up any more pee stains from terrified students.”

Maple Street Hall is the second oldest dorm on campus and there is a ghost named Brenda who has manifested herself many times. There are two different stories told about her. The first is that she is a young girl who died of a violent crime not far from her on-campus home at Maple Hall and her spirit has chosen to stay here. The other is about a woman similar to Wanda at Bruce Hall. She discovers that she is pregnant and tries to hide her condition. She then died when giving birth in a hidden part of Maple Hall. One resident advisor was checking the dorm rooms. After she checked a room, she would turn off the lights and shut the door. She finished up and was doing something else when a telephone began to ring from one of the rooms. She found the room where the phone was ringing and the door was wide open and the light was on. When she stepped in the room, the phone stopped ringing. She had another experience on that floor months later. Two students came to her asking who was living in the suite next to theirs. After the advisor told them that that particular suite was empty, the girls then told her that every morning they would hear the shower going.

Do the spirits of former students and professors still haunt the campuses of UNT and TWU? Are these universities in Denton haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
Martin, K. (2015, October 29). A Campus Haunting. Retrieved from North Texas Daily: ntdaily.com/a-campus-haunting/
Matthew. (2011, July 13). The elevator Repairman Ghost of UNT's Bruce Hall. Retrieved from McGarityDotme: mcgarity.me/personal/the-elevator-repairman-ghost-of-unts-bruce-hall
McCormack, J. (n.d.). Campus haunts. Retrieved from North Texans Online: northtexan.unt.edu/archives/f01/haunts.htm
Swoops, T. (2014, June 26). The Most Haunted Building at UNT. Retrieved from North Texas Pigeon: northtexaspigeop.com/article/The-Most-Haunted-Building-at-UNT
Texas Woman's University. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.org
Thurman, N. (2013). Texas Woman's University. Retrieved from Denton History: www.dentonhistory.net
Whitington, M. (n.d.). Ghosts of North Texas. In M. Whitington, Ghosts of North Texas (pp. 93-94). Landam: An imprint of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.