CREEPY SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND UNIVERSITIES
Education is the foundation of a successful life as long as the presence of ghosts doesn’t interfere with the learning process. All over the country, there are schools, colleges, and universities with their own amazing ghost stories. It’s hard enough to get students to focus on their work. Imagine taking an important test while apparitions walk past the classroom door, waving hello.
OHIO UNIVERSITY
Ohio University is a large public research university in Athens, Ohio. Founded in 1804, it is home to approximately twenty-four thousand students on the 1,800-acre campus. It is considered one of the most student-friendly universities in the country. It is also considered one of the most haunted campuses in the country. It was built upon a former burial ground. It was also the site of a former insane asylum. Talk about a double curse. It is located in the center of a pentagram shape of nearby cemeteries, too. All bets are off here, where a number of rooms and buildings are said to be home to spirits, including the infamous haunted dorm room 428 of Wilson Hall. In the 1970s, a woman attending classes began shouting in a strange language and acting as though she were possessed. She fell to her death from a window and haunts the school so much that the actual room 428 in Wilson Hall was shut off to students to this day.
SMITH COLLEGE’S SPIRITS
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, is the largest women’s college in the United States. Since 1871, it has given the world some notable alumnae including Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Sylvia Plath as well as a host of other influential leaders, writers, artists, and scholars. The buildings date back to the Colonial Era and sport a rich history filled with murders, epidemic outbreaks, and accidents, thus giving it another title: one of the most haunted colleges in New England. In fact, the college website continually updates reported ghost activity on campus. One of the most tragic centers is the Sessions House, which was built in 1751. The building was once an old boardinghouse. An American young woman and a British soldier were lovers who met under a hidden staircase, and their spirits are said to be quite active along with the ghost of a senior citizen who died from a gas oven left on, a little boy who died in the attic, and a mother who walks the floors with the baby she murdered in real life. The baby can be heard crying at night.
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
This legendary university doesn’t need ghost stories to have become famous. It has the Fighting Irish football team, the legendary alumnus Knute Rockne, and a top-rated marching band to boot. Founded in 1842, the University of Notre Dame du Lac is a private research university located in the community of Notre Dame, Indiana. One of the few universities to regularly rank in the top twenty-five in the U.S. News & World Report survey of best American colleges, it is both a legendary “football campus” and one of the most prominent Catholic universities in the country. It is also alleged to be widely haunted, thanks to its rich history, with activity thick around the Washington Hall theater. Built in 1881, a construction worker fell off the roof to his death and now haunts the building along with a music student who likes to play the French horn at night when there is no one around. The most famous Notre Dame spirit, though, is football hero George Gipp, who died in 1920 of pneumonia after having won the biggest victory of his playing career. Gipp played several positions, including quarterback, halfback, and punter, and was named the university’s first Walter Camp All-American player. He had incredible spirit in life and sometimes played with injuries that would have benched any other player. After his death, Coach Knute Rockne went on to give his memorable “Win One for the Gipper” halftime speech. Students and staff on campus report seeing the Gipper’s ghost riding a white horse up the stairs and through Washington Hall.
GETTYSBURG HAS A HAUNTED COLLEGE, TOO!
Located near the haunted battlefield where some of the bloodiest Civil War skirmishes and attacks played out with ultimate casualties reaching as high as fifty thousand soldiers, the Gettysburg College also has some ghost stories of its own. The four-year liberal arts college was built in 1832 on 225 acres (91 hectares) just adjacent to the battlefield. The college’s Penn Hall, the oldest building on the campus, was used during the war as a hospital and morgue, so it’s only natural much of the paranormal activity centers there. Campus administrators report being in the elevator when it malfunctioned. The elevator took them down to the building’s basement, where they were shocked to see a ghostly field hospital in operation when the doors opened complete with doctors and wounded soldiers covered in blood.
Ghosts also wander the halls of two residence halls, Stevens Hall and Huber Hall, dressed in soldier’s uniforms. One particular ghost, the Lone Sentinel, is a soldier carrying a gun that marches on top of Penn Hall and takes aim at passing students, who sometimes don’t realize they are looking at a spectral shooter.
WELLS COLLEGE
Originally founded in 1868 as a women’s private liberal arts college, Wells College bears the name of its founder, Henry Wells, who also founded Wells Fargo Bank and American Express. The sister college to Cornell University is smaller in size, located in the rural town of Aurora, New York. There are approximately 125 staff members and five hundred students on campus of both genders. In October 2004, after 136 years as a women-only institution, Wells announced it was opening its doors to male students as well. There were protests on campus over the decision, and a lawsuit was filed opposing the decision on behalf of female residents but was rejected in court. In 2005, Wells College officially became coeducational.
It has consistently been at the top of the U.S. News & World Report’s College Rankings list and boasts a strong educational learning system. It also boasts ghosts! During a particularly harsh winter, the campus was hit with a bad flu breakout, and the fourth floor of the main building on campus was used as a quarantine area. Several students died, and because there was no place to bring the bodies, another room was turned into a makeshift morgue, with its door painted red to warn anyone against accidentally entering the room.
Years later, the door was repainted on several occasions, but the red kept coming back through. Even though the building has undergone some changes, students allegedly search for the mysterious red door. The ghosts that haunt the campus include Max the security guard, who lost his wife while getting students to safety during a fire on campus. His hands are reported to push students in a stairwell as if trying to get them out safely. A former female science student haunts Zabriskie Hall. The story goes that she was stabbed to death by her professor after accusing him of stealing her work and putting his own name on it. Students studying late at night say her ghost will approach them and ask to have the knife pulled from her back only to have her then try to stab them with it!
Kenyon College is another private liberal arts institution, located in Gambier, Ohio, on a rural, 1,000-acre (400-hectare) campus that includes a nature preserve, the Brown Family Environment Center, which boasts over 382 acres (155 hectares) and seven different ecosystems. Founded in 1824 by Ohio’s first Episcopal bishop, Philander Chase, it has under two thousand undergraduates on campus and is officially credited by the Higher Learning Commission. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious learning institutions in the Midwest.
Ransom Hall at Kenyon College serves currently as the admissions building. The Ohio college is haunted by several spirits, including a student who died in a fraternity hazing and nine others killed in a fire.
Despite its tranquil setting (it is nicknamed “Hidden Ivy” for its remote setting), the entrance to the South Campus is known as the “Gates of Hell.” The south entrance is avoided by students anytime close to midnight, when church bells chime. Legend has it if you cross the stone pillars while the bells are ringing, your soul will go straight to hell. The oldest known ghost on campus is Stuart Preston, who died back in 1905 in a fraternity hazing. He was left on a trestle by his frat brothers, who then forgot to come and take him down. He was struck and killed by a train. Even today, as his spirit haunts the Old Kenyon Residence Hall, the DKE fraternity members have a ritual of carrying a coffin to the trestle and reading the coroner’s report aloud.
Other ghosts are said to be those of the nine students tragically killed in a fire in Old Kenyon in 1949. Students report waking up to bloodcurdling screams, flickering lights, and shouted warnings to get out of the building. The Greenhouse Ghost was a diver who was killed when he dove through a glass ceiling into the Shaffer Pool below. The Caples Residence Hall is home to a young, male ghost who died falling down an elevator shaft in 1979. Students in Caples report waking up to the smell of alcohol and the sense of an invisible person sitting on their beds.
A professor named Tim Shutt had led ghost tours of the college, and security guards claim the security office is a part of one of the most haunted buildings on the campus.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
Boston University is a private, nonprofit, research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. The university has been historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church but is a nonsectarian learning institution. The university has more than 3,900 faculty members and nearly thirty-three thousand students and is one of the city of Boston’s largest employers. There are two very famous ghosts that haunt the campus.
Famed dramatist and Nobel laureate in literature Eugene O’Neill died in 1953 in what is now Kilachand Hall. Before becoming a college building, it was a hotel frequented by the writer, known for Long Day’s Journey into Night among other masterpieces, whose ghost is said to continue to haunt the hall. Flickering lights, an elevator that halts randomly on the fourth floor, and bizarre knocks on doors have been reported by students who reside there.
The second ghost of note is that of the notorious Boston Strangler serial killer, whose spirit now lurks around Myers Standish Hall. The Boston Strangler, who was later revealed to be a man named Albert DeSalvo, murdered thirteen women in the Boston area during the early 1960s. He later confessed, and DNA evidence confirmed his link to the final murder victim.
Rumor has it that students come back to their dorm rooms in Myers Hall to find their rooms being rummaged through, despite the doors being locked. As a creepy aside, the building code to Myers Hall is 666. Perhaps he is seeking new victims in death among the college students returning late at night to the safety of their rooms.
PENN STATE
Pennsylvania State University is a multicampus institution with campuses and affiliate facilities located throughout the state. The main campus was established in 1855 in the rural University Park area and boasts approximately fifty thousand students with an additional fifty thousand at satellite campuses. It is considered one of the most prestigious learning institutions in the country, if not the world, and it is riddled with ghosts.
The main campus alone is notoriously haunted, spawning the university’s own paranormal research group on the site, the Paranormal Research Society, which has over forty members. The paranormal activity at Penn is so common and commonly known, there are tours on campus, especially at Halloween, and the hauntings have become a fixed part of the college culture.
The skeleton of Old Coaly is preserved at Penn State’s Hetzel Union Building. The mule, the first mascot of the university, is said to still wander campus halls, and students have reported hearing the clip-clop of hooves.
Undoubtedly, the most widely known spirit is that of the school’s first mascot, a mule named Old Coaly, born in 1855, the same year that Penn State traditionally observes the date it was founded, who continues to wander the halls. Students report the sounds of his hooves clip-clopping across the campus and hear his distinct brays. The Schwab Auditorium is particularly active, with students reporting chairs that move up and down with no one touching them, flickering lights, and the frequent apparition of three different ghosts, including the former janitor. In fact, Charles Schwab, the former industrialist after whom the auditorium was named, is said to be one of the ghosts. He was a former Penn State trustee and funded construction of the auditorium, as he was a huge supporter of the arts. Apparently, he likes to stick around and watch the performances in the small, nine-hundred-seat auditorium. There is also a female spirit, objects that move across the floor on their own, and the sound of noises echoing from upper floors. When students go to investigate, there is no one there.
Another famously haunted site on campus is the Old Botany Building situated along Pollack Road. It is a simple building but houses quite a bit of ghostly activity, according to students and researchers who’ve visited the red-brick cottage. The ghost of Frances Atherton, the wife of former university president George Atherton, is said to haunt the structure, and she is often spotted looking out an upper-floor window across the street to the cemetery where George is buried. Because the walkway past the building is so busy, there have been numerous reports of Frances standing, looking anxiously out, not even noticing the parade of students below.
Luckily, the many ghosts of Penn State are generally said to be friendly, or at least neutral, but they make for great late-night conversations on dark and stormy nights around the campus. The campus Ghost Walk allows new students to see and hear the legendary stories of the Penn State’s paranormal reputation while locating the hot spots they may wish to visit later or avoid altogether.
Mont Alto’s Wiestling Hall is the oldest building in the Penn State complex, built in 1807. It has functioned over the years as a dorm, a dining hall, classrooms, administrative offices, and home to at least two different ghosts. The ghosts are said to be those of Colonel George Wiestling himself, who built the manor with money he earned from the iron trade, and that of a woman named Sarah Matheny, who was murdered nearby in 1911. Students who have roomed or dined there over the years reported phantom footsteps and rapping on doors, and those who had the courage to investigate the building claim their batteries would quickly drain and die.
Penn State Abington sports the ghost of Amelia Earhart, who was a student there and would often climb out of the Sutherland Building’s roof at night to look at the stars when the building was known as the Ogontz School for Young Ladies. Students today often claim to hear loud footsteps above on the roof, and when they investigate, there is no one there. They believe it is Amelia’s ghost going up to see the stars she loved.
Penn State Wilkes-Barre was founded in 1916 to train engineers for the bustling coal industry. A family of coal barons, the Conynghams, donated their majestic home, Hayfield Farms, to Penn State University for its new campus. The father, John Conyngham, is said to have died falling down the home’s elevator shaft and now haunts the campus building, slamming doors and making all kinds of noises when no one is around. Others say the ghost of his wife, Bertha, also roams about making sure students respect the building and keep it clean.
Penn State Hazleton is a 125-acre (51-hectare) former estate called High-acres in the small town of Hazelton. It was once the home of a wealthy family, the Markles, who many now believe haunt Schiavo Hall, where night staff and late-studying students hear a host of strange, unexplained noises.
OTHER SPOOKY CAMPUSES
There are so many haunted colleges in the country, but some of the most intriguing follow. Chances are whatever college or university one might attend comes fully equipped with its own history as well as its own ghostly tales to tell. This is not a complete list by any means, which suggests that our nation’s students are learning their reading, writing, and arithmetic alongside the spirits of the dead. Wonder how their grades are compared to the living?
Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, was once the Ponce de León Hotel. The private liberal arts college was founded in 1968 with an additional campus in Tallahassee and is considered the second-best regional college in the South. The college is an example of turn-of-the-century architecture and was built originally as the hotel in the late 1800s by eccentric railroad tycoon Henry Flagler, after whom it is now named. Flagler is known for bringing tourism to the area. His ghost is now said to haunt the Ponce de León Hall. Rumor has it, his last request was that the windows and doors of the building remain open during his funeral, and students claim a janitor closed several, thus resulting in Flagler’s spirit being trapped in the building. Students claim that if you speak his name, lights will flicker on and off. A ghost of a small boy who fell from the balcony to his death also haunts the building with ghostly stomping into the wee hours of the night. Students also report waking up to the presence of a ghostly woman dressed in black standing at the foot of their beds and a handyman who likes to whistle as he works in the rooms.
The University of Montevallo is the only public liberal arts college in Alabama. Founded in 1896, it was originally a technical school for women, but many of its buildings are some of the oldest in the state, including King House and Reynolds Hall. It is considered one of the top regional colleges in the South as well as one of the best colleges for veterans. It has a haunted history as well and its own Montevallo Ghost Walk. Reynolds Hall is one of the most active buildings, with the ghost of Captain Henry Reynolds lurking about. The ghost of Dr. William Trumbauer haunts the theater located in Palmer Hall, and the ghost of Edmund King, who built the King House in 1923, is often seen wandering around inside and outside in the orchards carrying a shovel and lantern as he searches for the fortune he buried there during the Civil War. One of the most terrifying ghosts is of a woman who can be heard screaming as she runs down the hall in flames. She is called the Ghost of Main Hall, and in life, she was a student named Condie Cunningham, who tragically died in a fire there in 1909.
Another creepy Alabama college is Huntingdon College, which is in Montgomery. It was originally founded in 1854 as a women’s college in Tuskegee. Its two oldest residents are the Red Ladies. The first Red Lady is said to be the ghost of a young woman who wore a red dress and carried a red parasol. She roamed the hallways and the stairs of Sky Alley, the original residence hall. When the college moved in 1909 to the state capital of Montgomery to be able to take in more students, she was never seen again, although some blame her for the fire in one of the new campus’s original buildings. The second Red Lady is alleged to be the spirit of a young woman named Margaret or Martha, who took her own life in Pratt Hall by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. She always wore red, and shortly after her death, residents of Pratt Hall began seeing a ghostly female in red. The college today even has an annual Red Lady Run with sorority sisters painting their faces red and running all over campus in black clothing to honor the ghost.
Huntingdon College used to be the Woman’s College of Alabama. Today, it is home to not one but two “Red Ladies,” who are the spirits of students who met tragic ends on the campus.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign claims a few haunted buildings. The public research university is considered a flagship of the entire University of Illinois system and is home to a female ghost who roams the English Building, which used to be a women’s dorm and had its own pool. She allegedly drowned there and now walks the halls and stares out windows. Doors open and close, and phantom footsteps are heard at all hours as well as disembodied voices. The Lincoln Building, Psychology Building, and library are also paranormal hot spots. There is an urban legend on campus about a group of students who got so lost in the maze of the library’s main stacks that they died there, and late-night studiers often see a ghost walking among the rows of books. Students who have attempted the maze that is known as a college library can strongly relate to that nightmarish story!
Texas State University opened in San Marcos, Texas, in 1899 as a public research institution. It started out with a little over three hundred students and today has over thirty-nine thousand. Incoming freshmen are given a ghost tour of the many haunted sites on the campus, including the Old Main, which is haunted by a female ghost carrying her books and looking for her classes. Students and staff alike have reported apparitions, disembodied voices, and strange footsteps in the middle of the night.
Saint Mary of the Woods College near Terre Haute, Indiana, is the oldest Catholic college in the state, founded in 1840 by a group of French nuns. It started as a college for women and was one of the first national colleges to offer business and professional courses for women students. Two of the campus buildings, Le Fer and Foley, seem to be the hot spots for ghostly activity, with stories of entities that grab the feet of students who reside there and phantom piano music inside the conservatory, which was demolished in 1989. A special mass took place on campus to cleanse the building. The most popular ghost is the Faceless Nun, who taught art and painted portraits of students for fun. She died before finishing her own self-portrait and, rumor has it, she haunts the art room of Foley Building looking for the unfinished canvas. There is no real record of such a nun ever existing, but she is now reported to have made the campus church her new stomping, or haunting, grounds.
HAUNTED HIGH SCHOOLS
Though college and university campuses are usually far older and richer in history, including paranormal history, there are indeed haunted high schools and grade schools with their own spooky tales to tell. Take Pocatello High School in Pocatello, Idaho, also known as “Poky High.” This school became a viral sensation when raw security surveillance video captured a ghostly figure in the hall of the school during a holiday break. The Idaho State Journal reported on the story and the video, which also showed lights flickering on and off in a strange pattern. The entity seen on the screen was sitting against a wall, then rose and went into a bathroom, re-emerged, and walked down the hall away from the video camera. Paranormal investigators visiting the school report there are over six ghosts on-site, including one girl who hanged herself as part of a suicide pact in the late 1940s (the second girl never went through with the pact).
Even a former principal, Don Cotent, claimed to have encountered several paranormal events while working late at night at the school. He would hear someone banging beneath the floor, and sometimes, he even yelled at the intruder to stop, but the noises would continue. When students came back to class after the holiday break, they met with a ghostly apparition in the gym bleachers, strange noises throughout the school, disembodied voices, and the sound of someone playing a piano as well as shadow figures hanging out in the school auditorium.
Another haunted high school is Tennessee High School in Bristol. Built in 1939, it originally went by the name Fifth Street School. Over the years, the campus has been expanded and is now haunted by a student named Agnes, who allegedly was killed when her car was struck by a train at a railroad crossing. She was on her way to the school for a formal event and now roams the halls, witnessed by both staff and students, and even showed up once in the auditorium broadcast booth. Some people have reported seeing a phantom train roaring through the gym and down the hallway. It is so loud, it shakes the rooms as it passes by. Another ghost, of a former athlete hit by a car on his way home from a big game, also haunts the school and is often seen hanging out during football games.
El Paso High School in Texas is filled with ghostly tales of strange goop dripping from classroom ceilings, hallways filled with unexplained mists, and hidden classrooms beneath the main building. Ghostly photos exist, including one of the graduating class of 1985 in which a woman in the center of the picture looks as though she might be a ghost. She was never identified, and rumor has it she is the spirit of a student who took her life years before by jumping from a balcony just off a mist-filled hallway. That same ghost is seen by students to this day, jumping off the balcony but vanishing just before her body hits the ground.
The lovely neoclassical architecture of El Paso High School is sullied by strange goop that drips from ceilings in the classrooms.
Arizona’s Lee Williams High School sits above a frontier town called Kingman, that was once actively involved in mining cattle driving, and railroading. Students report the ghost of a man wearing a bowler hat walking the halls along with the spirit of a young girl who calls out at night asking to go outside to play. There are flickering lights and motion detectors that go off at random and, thanks to the football field being situated atop a former cemetery, plenty of spectral apparitions in old-fashioned garb seen during graduation events on the field.
Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, California, was built on top of Old Cavalry Cemetery, and during renovations of the school, many old headstones were dug up and are prominently displayed on the football field. The school mascot is called the Phantom to honor the ghostly heritage. Maintenance workers have reported a host of spirits that accompany cold spots in various school locations late at night.
Like Cathedral High, Topeka High School in Kansas was also built upon a former cemetery in the late 1890s. Though the cemetery was relocated nearby, the disturbed spirits are said to still haunt the school, perhaps angry for being awakened from their peaceful eternal slumber. Students and teachers witness apparitions, disembodied voices, and hushed conversations that seem to take place between two invisible entities. Rumors abound of underground tunnels that lead from the school to the hidden cemetery below. Two other city landmarks nearby are allegedly haunted, too.
Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, opened in 1965. It claims to be filled with paranormal activity, even though no known deaths have occurred on-site. Staff members and students report disembodied voices and footsteps in the halls, keys jiggling on some phantom ghostly body, a ten-foot-tall man in a trench coat who floats six feet above the ground of the school’s stage, doors that open and close on their own, and chairs that move around in the basement.
Meanwhile, at Roy High School in Roy, Utah, three ghosts have made their presence known time and time again. They even have names! Backstage Mabel shows up in the backstage area of the school’s auditorium, turning stage lights on and off and moving props around. The Lady in the Purple Hat likes to coax people to follow her but few do thanks to the negative energy she gives off. Last but not least is the Roaming Ghost, an apparition that likes to hang out in the school hallways and who may be the ghost of a student killed by a train. Sometimes, teachers hear pounding on the doors after school hours only to find there is no one at the doors.
Urbana High School in Urbana, Illinois, has its own haunted tower, where a secret door in the school allegedly leads up to the tower, although no one has ever found it. Legend has it a female teacher fell in love with a male student and she hanged herself in the tower. Another ghost is said to be part of a love triangle gone bad, and a third is an alleged suicide victim. Late at night, witnesses have seen strange lights up in the abandoned tower and heard loud tapping noises with no explanation.
C. E. Byrd High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, is home to the ghost of an ROTC sergeant who committed suicide there in the 1960s. Students investigating a rumor of another ghost, which proved to be fake, found out about the suicide of Sergeant Will Stubblefield, who killed himself in October 1962, although it was reported it may have been an accident. His presence continues to be felt throughout the school, usually accompanied by cold spots.
Both a high school and an elementary school back in the 1930s, the Elizabeth V. Edwards School in Barnegat, New Jersey, has been vacant since 2004. It was said to be haunted by the ghost of a student named Lizzy, who liked to slam locker doors shut, turn lights on and off, and play 1940s music. There are other ghosts on the site as well, including a translucent woman in a floral print dress, along with strange activity such as unplugged phones ringing, lights being turned on where there are no light bulbs in the sockets, and objects that move on their own.
CREEPY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
Just the thought of sending little children to a haunted school is enough to send chills up and down the spine. Matthew Whaley Elementary School in Williamsburg, Virginia, which was founded in 1699, was named after a boy named Matthew Whaley who was born in 1698 and died only nine years later. The cause of death is unknown, but his grieving mother honored his death by adding on to the existing school. It was first known as Mattey’s School, then the Matthew Whaley School. Though the school has been relocated three times throughout the city, his ghost is said to continue to haunt the school along with two other boy ghosts and a host of phenomena, including phantom footsteps. Though Matthew’s ghost seems to frequent the bathrooms and playground, the spirits of the two boys, who are said to be the victims of lynchings, seem to favor wandering about the school as well as the nearby city streets.
California’s city of Redlands is home to Mariposa Elementary School, home to an urban legend that seems to change according to those telling the tale. The story goes something like this: Billy was a boy hit by a school bus while riding his bike near the school. He may have died in the 1950s or the 1960s, depending on who you ask. The school was built in 1964, and his spirit allegedly swings on the playground swings, knocks on the attendance office door, and has been seen by a number of students … or not. In fact, kids would often take to knocking three times on a door at the school, hoping Billy would respond. But for those who work there, the greater concern is high school-age vandals, not stories of a boy who likes nothing more than to swing and knock about.
Summit Elementary School in Amarillo, Texas, also sounds more like an urban legend but got its start somewhere. As the story goes, in the heat of the civil rights movement, this was one of the segregated elementary schools for African American children. No whites were allowed to attend. The school janitor was rumored to have been a member of the Ku Klux Klan and an avid white supremacist, and he abducted four boys one afternoon and murdered them in the boiler room. Out of guilt for what he had done, or maybe fear of being caught and punished, he went to the roof, climbed the large smokestack, and jumped to his death. Legend has it that if you are there at night, you can hear the screams of the four boys and see a red ball bouncing down the hall leading to the boiler room. Cars in the area report that their radios turn on and off by themselves and the ghost of the janitor himself is sometimes seen leaping from the smokestack only to vanish before he hits the ground. The area is patrolled regularly by police to keep out people who want to see if the ghost stories are real.
Old Milton School in Alton, Illinois, was built in 1904 and abandoned in 1984. It was later turned into a decorative glass manufacturing company warehouse, and those who work there still claim ghosts abound. During the 1930s, a janitor raped and killed a young, female student named Mary. He later hanged himself in the school hallway. After those two events, students and teachers began seeing Mary’s ghost in the office area and experiencing a hostile ghost that may have been the janitor. Also reported were shadow figures and phantom noises. The glass company employees also report a number of phenomena, including objects that appear and disappear, an apparition that sits on the stairs just outside the office, Xs and Os tapped out by invisible hands on computer screens, the apparition of a small girl, and footsteps at night when no one is around.
Our last haunted school is in Forest Falls, California. Fallsvale Elementary School is located amid a forest setting and is home to the “Ghost Children” according to teachers and students who have witnessed them. These are ghostly apparitions that would come out from the forest to play and interact with the children, and many of the students even call the ghosts by names. They aren’t hostile, so the children welcomed the playmates. The school is now abandoned, and paranormal investigators visit often, trying to get the children to come out and play and to determine whether it’s the forest that is haunted or the school.
POASTTOWN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Poasttown Elementary School in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a legend unto itself. This haunted grade school has probably been investigated by more paranormal and ghost-hunting groups than any other thanks to its rich haunted history. Though the school itself closed its doors in 2000, the new owners have found this historic building is still home to the ghosts of former students who may still believe class is in session. They purchased the building and made it their main home, but it wasn’t long before they realized they had permanent houseguests.
The school is in the Middletown section and was originally opened in 1937. It served only as a school until its closing, unlike so many older historic buildings, and many locals remember attending there. Many also remember experiencing strange sensations on the premises, most likely the result of the events that occurred within its fifty-four rooms. The many ghosts seen there may have been victims of two train accidents—one in 1895 and one in 1910—both of which happened, strangely, on July 4. The 1910 crash is considered the worst railroad crash in Butler County’s history and involved the head-on collision of a passenger train and a freight train. Twenty-four people died and another thirty-five or so were injured according to Middletown Historical Society records. The land the school was later built upon was used as an emergency triage area for the many crash victims.
Tours are commonplace today and you can pay to stay overnight in one of the rooms, and it is perfectly normal to see people walking about the school with all kinds of strange ghost-hunting equipment or just feeding their own curiosity. Many of the rooms are used for multipurpose community needs as well. Some of the phenomena reported include apparitions and ghosts, people being touched by invisible hands, laughter and the sounds of children playing, footsteps and doors opening and closing after hours, and shadow figures moving down the hallways. The school even has its own motto: “When you leave, you believe.”
