Stephen F. Austin State University is a beautiful campus, filled with greenery, wonderful people and an all-around calm atmosphere. However, did you know about the stipulations around this campus? Like most older universities, SFA has its own ghost stories to tell.
Photo by: SaMaria Boyd
Griffith Theatre Building, Tuner Fine Arts Auditorium: In the theatre auditorium, there roams a ghostly figure by the name of Chester. There are many stories surrounding him, many that theatre majors know well. The earliest reports of Chester date back to 1967. It is said that Chester came to be by one of two ways: he had a heart attack and died after seeing that the theatre building was built backwards, or that he was a construction worker who fell to his death while Griffith was under construction.
“I was told that he hung himself because the building was built backwards,” SFA ex-Theater major—now minor, Dominque Hanes said to me. She had some experiences with said ghost, and was willing to share her experiences with me.
“He’s a huge jokester ghost,” she said. “I’ve never really seen him but, if you yell at him to stop doing something like—CHESTER STOP IT—he’ll maybe stop.”
She started smiling, “He loves pranks.”
Dominque continued to talk about Chester as if he was an old friend. She told me that at one point, after mentions the famous Scottish play, Macbeth, that all the equipment stopped working. Of course, she blames Chester, calling it one of his pranks.
According to Catie Rhodes’ article, “Chester is associated with cold drafts, unexplained footsteps, and the odd feeling of not being alone…actors report being tapped on the shoulder… and finding no one there. Some people see a lighted face in the darkened auditorium and a shadow in the hallways.”
It is plain to see that Chester causes a lot of fuss.
Photo by: SaMaria Boyd
Mays Hall 11: from what I’ve heard personally about Mays hall is that it was once a hospital with a morgue underneath. You can understand why people think it is haunted by some type of ghost. However, in my experience visiting friends there, I’ve never seen anything, yet, there is a distinct harrowing feeling you get when inside.
“Students speculate that someone…died in the hospital, or perhaps someone…was stored in the morgue [was] unhappy and haunting the building.” Says Dana Goolsby from her own article.
It is also known to students on campus that Mays hall used to be a bomb shelter in the early 1940s, and that could also be a reason for all the negativity around and inside the building.
Next, we have the hall I currently reside in: Griffith Hall. It is well known to us Griffith hall residents that our hall in fact is haunted. It is haunted by a girl who, in the midst of playing with a Ouija board, threw herself out a third story window to her death. It is said that she haunts at approximately 2 am, running up and down the stairwell between 3rd and 4th floor in the south wing.
Rumor has it that because of this incident, women in Griffith are only allowed to live on the fourth and fifth floors since its debut as a co-ed dorm.
SFA has some spooky ghost stories to tell, but how many untold secrets lie in SFA’s unopened tomb?