When I first became interested in ghost stories, I went to Bookman's and devoured every Hans Holzer and Troy Taylor book they had. In the early 90s the paranormal was not nearly the draw it is today. Even then, I was surprised by how many haunted schools those authors reported on. Hotels, cemeteries, old houses, forests, of course. But schools seemed an anomaly.
Since then I have heard many accounts and uncovered eerie stories of haunted dorms, unsettling classroom antics, and hallways patrolled by unseen and often unhappy entities. You can find these stories in every state, from famous campuses like West Point, Harvard, and Gettysburg down to the most obscure elementary schools. For this blog I am sticking to Arizona school spirits, a brief rundown of what I have heard and discovered.
Flagstaff: the old Emerson School
Anyone who has been on our Flagstaff tour has heard the ghostly tales stemming from the old Emerson School, now better known as the downtown public library, which reportedly shares a portion of Emerson's basement footprint. Shortly after the library opened in 1987, librarians began noticing weird occurrences. Nothing gruesome at first: pencils disappearing, books found across the room from where they were placed, cold breezes on a summer day. By the late 1990s, whisperings of something creepier leaked out. I have spoken with staff who have seen apparitions between the stacks, and one young woman who was scared straight by a floating head where the atlas was supposed to be. The children's section was targeted by an unfriendly energy that scattered books and displays overnight, then seemed to lurk about when the day shift came in.
There is a darker chapter behind Emerson, a janitor who murdered his family and then hanged himself in the school's basement. The full account gets told on our Flagstaff tour, where it belongs.
Kingman: Lee Williams High School
Lee Williams High School in Kingman is another creeper. I have never been there myself, but a member of our team was contacted by a resident who wanted us to investigate. The Ghost Adventures crew beat us to it and reported plenty of activity. Part of the school's football field was apparently built atop the old Pioneer cemetery, and that made some spirits unhappy. Several generations of pupils have come forward with stories of apparitions in the hallways, voices, especially one of a young girl wanting to play, flickering lights, the whole paranormal yard.
Tucson: more haunted schools than Flag and Kingman combined
Tucson has more haunted school buildings than Flagstaff and Kingman combined. Holaway Elementary School is, if not haunted by, then looked after by its namesake Francis Holaway. A former teacher and principal, his ghostly image has been seen at night checking the locks on the doors. Tucson High Magnet School is known for weird energies in its classrooms: banging, tapping, doors closing on their own, sudden cold spots. Collier Elementary, named in honor of the beloved teacher Lulu Collier, has many reported sightings of a female apparition roaming its halls, along with eerier accounts of small ghostly children running about. I go deeper on all three in Paranormal Classrooms. Then there is the University of Arizona, but there are so many stories that U of A deserves its own blog.
I have barely touched the eerie sightings coming out of these old Arizona schools. The buildings really are kind of creepy, especially when empty. Footsteps echo down tiled, cavernous hallways, and the classrooms look dark and vacant without the students. Yet the walls themselves have absorbed so much energy, so much life, through the decades. The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes that schools would be just as haunted as hotels and homes. Happy September.
Walk this story
Tucson's haunted classrooms are only one shelf of the city's library of strange. The Downtown Tucson Haunted History Tour runs evenings at 8 PM for $29 and covers the downtown stories that started it all, from Hotel Congress to El Tiradito. Class dismissed, tour begins at dark.
