Two Scary Tales of Powers Hall

Two Scary Tales

Powers Hall is actually attached to Barnes Hall. It once housed the Music department, but in 1998 they were relocated to a brand-new building, and Powers became the residence of the History department. While there has never been an actual "ghost" reported in Powers Hall, and there is only a vague death legend associated with it, the building has a reputation. Anyone who's been inside the old music building (and current home of the History department), especially at night, will be well aquainted with its general aura of creepyness and unease. It's just plain freaky.

A Spooky Night

The following tale was related by a History graduate assistant, in Fall of 1998. The following comes strainght from an e-mail message written as he was in the building--i.e., an "as it happened" testimonial. To my knowledge he has not gone back into the building at night since.

I'm at powers right now doing some research of some of the journal collections in the resource room. It's about 2:45 am. Damn, Powers is a spooky fucking place right now. There were no lights on when I got here but from the pop machines and exit signs, so I have to flip on lights myself as I go down the hallway. Halfway down the hallway, I swear I smell the familiar scent of pot. Or maybe cigar. I'm not really sure. Needless to say, I'm curious. I get in my office, pick up a few things, leave my coat and head down the hall to the resource center. I get in, yank the stuff I wanted to look through, look at it , and decide I want to copy something. I head to the office, let myself in, and warm up the copy machine. Then I decide I'm going to look through Centra to see if they have some journals I might want articles out of tomorrow, so I turn on the computer and go down the hall to get my stuff that I left in the resource center. As I'm putting the journals on the shelf I swear I hear whistling down the hallway--a man maybe. But when I closed up the resource center and went down the hall, there was no one, not even a janitor. Then I lock myself in the main office and as I'm copying stuff I think I hear keys being rattled somewhere.

Let's just say that I'm on edge a bit, shall we. Damn this building is spooky.

Oh yeah, I didn't mention that that strange smell moved when I went back down the hall one time. It wasn't where it was before.

This is all very strange. And cool in many ways. If I had guts I'd wander around to see if anyone is here.

This tale is typical of the kinds of things that come out of Powers Hall--general feelings of eerieness, of faint unease.

The Powers Courtyard

The Powers courtyard is a featured spot on the Legends tour, not only because of it's unique location, but because of the unusual story that has surfaced there. The Powers courtyard contains a small flower garden that rarely ever has flowers in it, shaped like a piano, with a bench along the edge where a piano bench should be. While there's nothing spooky about the small plot of dirt, it does lend a nice element to the stories that surround it.

Some tell a tale of a young music student who died during the years that Powers was a music building; they claim that the piano-shaped flowerbox is either a memento to her memory, or even (and this is a rare, and rather odd, varient) a marker, and that the girl is buried beneath the dirt. Some say the girl was a piano player, hence the shape of the flowerbox. This tale has proven completely unverifiable.

The more common, and popular, story involves a a few boys who happened to be in the courtyard oneweekend night. No one is sure *why* they were there, but the story claims that at some point in the night, all the lights in the courtyard went out (there are two or three lights over various doors), without explaination. In the darkness, the boys heard flute music (sometimes reported as piano music [presumably because of the garden plot], though these reports are in error), drifting down from above them. The boys were frightened, and when the lights came back on a few moments later, the music ended just as abruptly as it had begun. The boys ran.

This story reportedly happened during the years Powers was a music building. It could have been a late-night practice session they heard (even though the building would have been locked up). But considering Power's creepy reputation, and the vague tale of the dead music student, who knows what the truth may be ... ?