In the spirit of Halloween, the informal group on learning spaces took a tour of buildings and locations laced with dramatic stories of the past, some stories a little far-fetched, edging more on Urban Myths, and some stories whose gruesome details were reported in the news media at some point.  Luckily, there aren’t that many gruesome stories to tell about the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. I admit, I was a tad disappointed that I couldn’t find many horrible tales of tragedy and hauntings to embellish the ghost stories that would accompany the “haunted tour” of campus. I was kind of hoping to uncover the kind of ghost sightings that would attract Ghost Adventures to come to our campus to film an episode of their show. We may have a few potential spots for ghost chasers to investigate some well-accepted ghost stories, but overall we were able to go on an entertaining walk on a perfect fall day.

A perfect fall day on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign quad.

Some of our tour included just plain spooky locations, like the not-so-well-known underground tunnels connecting buildings on the south end of campus. While I couldn’t find any documentation of ghost sightings or unexplained events in the tunnels, it was easy to imagine the events that could lead up to an eternal haunting in such a place. When we found a deep freezer in one of the tunnels, and of course had to open it, we found black trash-bag covered . . .  somethings . . . perhaps carcasses? Okay, that is purely speculation, but it made several of us very squeamish. We closed the freezer and moved quickly for the exits!

Informal Group on Learning Spaces haunted tour participants brave a steep, narrow staircase leading down to underground tunnels.

Since it was really a beautiful fall day to go on our haunted tour, we made sure to stop by the only purported grave site on the campus. You have to look for the grave marker for the first President of the University of Illinois between Altgeld Hall and Henry Administration Building in a small grove of trees.

The grave marker for the first President of the University of Illinois, John Milton Gregory. The inscription reads “If you seek his monument look about you.”

The real ghost stories we were hunting down on our tour are pretty well substantiated, as far as ghost stories go, that is. To prepare us for the places we were going to see, I found several well done video documentaries by University of Illinois students. These videos did a great job to give us the back stories and set the mood for ghostly encounters on our tour. I invite you to watch them. Best done in a darkened room. Alone.

• The first video by DAVProductionsLV details the English Building and the supposed suicide of a student. University of Illinois | Haunting (2:32)
• The second video documents the English Building, Urbana High School, and a supposed haunting in Noyes Lab (by TheKatherineKoko). Documentary – Haunted Urbana Champaign(4:22)
• The final, longish video follows 2 students as they search for the exact locations of the ghost in the English Building. I love this video because the girls, Kelsey Shannon and Allyson Brown, are already spooked out before they enter the building. (8:02) Haunted English Building (INFO303)

The other locations/stories we examined were: Psychology Building, University YMCA, (old) Sociology Building near Roger Adams Lab, Natural Resources Building, Lincoln Hall (pre-renovation stories!), and the Stock Pavilion. You can learn more about these locations and the tales that have guaranteed their place in the ghost story traditions of University of Illinois at the Prairie Ghosts website which documents the history and hauntings of Illinois. Another great resource on the history of the buildings on the Illinois campus is the UI Histories Project, where you can find the full history of all of the campus buildings, including this history of the old Women’s Building (English Building), with photo archives: http://uihistoriesproject.chass.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/cview?SITEID=1&ID=80.

If you are lucky in your research, you will find even more student created bodies of work that document the legends that give our campus a rich heritage, filled with tantalizing ghost stories, myths, and folklore that stand the test of time. I’m continually impressed with the knowledge that we as a campus community continue to share and learn from. Even a light-hearted “Haunted Tour” of our spaces gave us a chance to see parts of the campus that not many of us get to see, and we become closer to the stories and to the experiences of our students. It helped a lot that we happened to have the perfect fall day for a walking tour, too.

Until Next Time,

Leslie