Trinity is home to many nooks and crannies for students to study and hang out in, but some of these spaces may come with an unexpected chill down your spine. Students and staff have ghost stories about hauntings in Coates Library, the Center for the Sciences and Innovation (CSI), Laurie Auditorium and the William Knox Holt Center. Many of the buildings on Trinity’s 125 acres date back to the 1950s, and as a result, they have ambiguous pasts and histories that have spawned rumors and urban legends around them.
Over the years, the Holt Center has become notorious for its alleged paranormal activity. Trey Dunn, Tiger Card Coordinator, recalls a lot of rumors and spooky stories about the Holt Center.
“The story I heard was that an abortion doctor lived there at some point. And there’s an incinerator in the basement, and stories about babies in the fire when you burned a fire in the fireplace, you could see babies [in the flame],” Dunn said.
However, Jennifer Mathews, chair of the sociology and anthropology department, describes a different history of the house on the end of Oakmont Court.
“[The house was owned by] a woman that owned a pecan company [that employed] a large contingent of pecan workers who were primarily Latinx, and there were labor contentions,” Mathews said.
Lois Garza, office manager at the Holt Center for four decades, recalls some eerie experiences during her tenure.
“We used to have old types of phones that had little boxes that had lights on them. If somebody upstairs was on the phone, the lights would come on just so I would know if someone was on the phone upstairs. We would all be down here, and then the lights would like turn on as if someone was up there, but nobody was up there,” Garza said.
The unsettling ambience of the Holt Center may be short-lived, as renovations have been planned. Still, as one of the oldest buildings on Trinity, the myths and urban legends surrounding Holt Center will live on.
The first floor of Coates Library used to be an open area with parking around the outside of the building, but the continued renovations of the library closed that space. Robin El Attar, first-year undeclared major and student employee at Information Technology Services (ITS), believes that the ground floor of the library, where the ITS desk and the Center for International Engagement are located, is the most haunted place on campus.
“[The first floor] is dark, and the lights turn off all the time, and I swear sometimes it gets cold for no reason, like a spirit goes by … One time I swear I heard footsteps behind me whenever I was taking the trash out, and it turns out there was no one else there,” Robin said.
The basement of Laurie Auditorium is nestled between the front of the parking garage and the back of Ruth Taylor Theater. Taylor Hervey, first-year undeclared major, finds Laurie Auditorium’s basement especially spooky.
“The first time I tried to find it I was walking in and it kept going … All I could see was darkness and doors … There was minimal lighting, and it was giving ‘The Backrooms,’” Hervey said, referring to the urban myth that an endless drab maze of office spaces exists parallel to our reality.
The Marrs McLean Hall elevator is located adjacent to the main CSI complex. The elevator is in the back corridor to the left of the exit facing the CSI. Claire Elliott, sophomore Spanish and political science double-major, said that she avoids the CSI-Marrs McLean elevator because of its unsettling ambience.
“Marrs McLean elevator … [is] really dark, rattly and [has] like very fake fluorescent scary lights and slightly stained carpets … [and] the fact that there’s a fourth floor button that doesn’t go there,” Elliott said.
Trinity may have a diverse array of eerie experiences in store for students and staff — however, many of these stories occurred late at night and in solitude. As a general rule of thumb, to avoid the paranormal in these locations, go in broad daylight or bring a friend you can outrun.
