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The
oldest town in Texas has its fair share of the paranormal. Stephen F. Austin State
University is allegedly home to numerous spooks.
The Turner Fine Arts
Auditorium at SFA has more than fine art in the building. A ghost named Chester
is believed to haunt the building.
Chester is believed to be the ghost
of the architect who died before the building's completion. It is said that Chester
misinterpreted the blueprints, and the building was erected backwards. After learning
his plans were backwards, the legend says Chester took his own life in disgrace.
Chester’s believers think the architectural mistake is likely the motivating factor
in the haunting.
Others believe that "Chester" is the ghost of a former
SFA drama student.
Students have reported seeing Chester’s face on a stage
curtain. During the 1960’s witnesses say Chester appeared onstage as an extra
ghost in a play.
SFA drama students have reported strange noises within
the halls of the building, as well as intensely cold spots.
Chester was
seen originally in a photo of the original theatre cast of Hamlet. The actor who
was cast as the “ghost” in Hamlet fell ill on opening night. The director replaced
the actor with a stand-in. After the play, the cast took a photo. The photo allegedly
shows only a faint glow coming from where the ghost portraying the character was
standing. Cast members were shocked.
A spiritual team entered the theatre
building to do a reading. The team reported a mediocre feeling within the halls,
but asserted a strong feeling of a presence within the theatre itself.
Mays
Hall 11 at SFA is also said to be haunted, and students are baffled by an
indescribable negativity, that is said to overwhelm those who dare enter. -
Before
the building was a dormitory, it was a hospital, with a morgue in the basement.
At the opposite end of the basement is a deep bomb shelter that was built in the
early 1940’s.
The Mays Hall basement is usually locked, but from time to
time, it is broken into by those who cannot resist the urge to explore. The basement
reportedly harbors heavy feelings of negativity. The ill feeling is mild toward
the old bomb shelter, but those who have wandered the old morgue say the feeling
intensifies the closer one comes to a false wall within the basement.
No
one knows what is behind the mysterious false wall, and no one has identified
the presence that seems to be projecting such negativity. Although college students
often go exploring in areas that are off limits, none have been reported to be
so brave as to inspect the false wall, or what might be behind it.
Students
speculate that someone who died in the hospital, or perhaps someone who was stored
in the morgue is unhappy and haunting the building.
On the third floor
of Griffith Hall residents claim to be haunted by a former resident assistant,
who allegedly leapt to her death after playing with a Ouija board. The community
shower lights reportedly flicker every night at the same time, which is believed
to be the female spirit’s time of death.
A girl in tattered clothes has
been spotted at the end of the hall, but when residents do a double take, the
girl is gone.
According to residents who have either lived in Griffith
Hall or stayed in the dorm, at approximately 2 a.m. every night in the south wing
running footsteps can be heard. One resident reported watching out of the peephole
of her dorm room as she heard the running footsteps approaching. Though she did
not see anything or anyone pass by, she felt a gust of cold air rush under her
door, just as if someone had ran by.
SFA and its deeply rooted history,
has been keeping students busy hunting ghosts for decades. Those who are not ghost
hunting are likely being hunted.
© Dana
Goolsby
Reporter of The Grapeland Messenger
"They
shoe horses, don't they?"
October 23, 2010 Column
See Nacogdoches,
Texas
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