Arkansas Tech University, several locations are rumored to be haunted. One is Caraway Hall, where students describe noises in the attic, footsteps on the stairs and whispers in the hallways. There are two legends to explain the hauntings. One is that it is build on top of a Cherokee burial site, and another is that a female student committed suicide here. Another haunted site on campus is Tucker Coliseum, where a star basketball player was killed in a car accident in 1981. His ghost is said to pull down an auditorium seat and leave basketballs scattered all over the court. And Witherspoon Hall is said to be haunted by a ghost of a former student who plays a piano in the practice room.
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Geographic Information
- Address:
- 1605 N Coliseum Dr
Russellville, AR 72801
United States
Get Directions » - GPS:
- 35.2953533, -93.1333027
- County:
- Pope County, Arkansas
- Nearest Towns:
- Russellville, AR (1.2 mi.)
Dardanelle, AR (5.2 mi.)
Pottsville, AR (5.8 mi.)
London, AR (7.1 mi.)
Dover, AR (7.4 mi.)
Atkins, AR (11.6 mi.)
Wilson, AR (12.9 mi.)
Knoxville, AR (14.3 mi.)
Hector, AR (14.9 mi.)
New Blaine, AR (16.2 mi.)
Contact Information
- Web:
- http://www.atu.edu/
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Disclaimer: The stories posted here are user-submitted and are, in the nature of "ghost stories," largely unverifiable. HauntedPlaces.org makes no claims that any of the statements posted here are factually accurate. The vast majority of information provided on this web site is anecdotal, and as such, should be viewed in the same light as local folklore and urban legends.
I was at Tech from 1981-1985. I lived in Bryan Hall. I was annoyed because late at night the girl in the room above mine would come into her room walk around,and take a shower. I complained to some friends, and they said that the room was empty. There hadn’t been in that room since
early the semester before. A girl that lived in Caraway told me a girl had been electrocuted in the room above mine with a hairdryer. I had not even brought the subject up. I also awoke one night to see a girl in a bath robe standing over me, and my radio came on. Back then I heard Caraway,Rouse, and the old basketball gym was haunted. Same story as the Tucker story,but the player died in the fifties or sixties.
I went to ATU for band camp, from 1999-2004, during the summer, Witherspoon Hall is where we had band practices. I got in trouble and had to do clean up, in Witherspoon Hall after dinner, their was only 5 of us, not including a camp helper, and it was an easy clean up because of it. Well towards the end, the helper wanted to show us around the building, I didn’t want to but the others convinced me. He showed us the theater in the building, we all went up to the sound booth to get a good look, I was looking at the stage and I saw a girl/women standing their. I froze, the other girl with me saw her too so she asked the helper if we where interrupting a rehearsal. He something along the lines of, their are no rehearsals during band camp week, so she said then who is that. The guys turn to the stage and we all look at her, he said that we should leave and I nodded my head going for the door, we all run out of their and the helper looks scared. We head over to the main entrance but they already locked the doors, they thought that we where done and left, so he takes us some where, I really don’t remember, but we hear a piano playing. I stop to listen, it was a beautiful melody, but the helper grabbed my arm and pulled me along. We finally make it out and he take us to our dorms, luckily we where all in the same building, along the way he told us about how Witherspoon Hall is haunted, and we just saw ghost. The other girl and I linked arms and held the other tight afraid to let go, we get to our dorms and my dorm mate is waiting up, I told her what happened and she was excited. I however decided to be good from their on, and only went into the building, when I had too.
Last summer I went to the Band Camp. We were waiting for the director one day on the 3rd floor in Witherspoon Hall. We started to hear a piano playing. When we found the door it was locked and the lights were off inside. The next we heard it again. The door was open this time but the lights were still off. Every time someone walking in the room went silent. We went back to the room and someone started shouting “Gene Witherspoon!” (the founder of the building.) Suddenly, the door swung open and the music fell off of the stands and the room went cold.
This explains a lot because my school visited there and I felt apparitions. The staff claimed there wasn’t any ghosts though
yeah right
My mother went their for collage and it is NOT haunted! I don’t believe in ghosts. It is not the Christian way.
i believe heheheheheheheh
There are demons, and they are apart of the bible.
well then y are u on an haunted website if u don’t believe in ghost
sounds cool! I hope it isn’t true though.
i believe too
I went here for band camp a few years ago, and on my way to a rehearsal I heard a piano playing from a room down the hall. When I got closer to the room and went in, no one was there. I was pretty creeped out since I heard about the “ghosts” on the way there, and after that I was scared to sleep lol. It was fun but unsettling…
At Tech currently. About a year ago I was going to a student event in the Witherspoon theater and was standing behind a few staff members who were also waiting to get it. One of them said that they had had to apologize to two other staff members that morning because she had made fun of them for believing the office was haunted. Apparently Gene likes to make coffee for the staff but this woman hadn’t believed it to be true until she was the first person in the building that morning and a fresh pot of coffee was already made. She hunted down the janitorial staff and they said they hadn’t been in the building since 9pm the night before and the coffee pot had been empty when they left. No one else was in the office suite or the offices on the second or third floor because she had come in about 45 minutes early that morning.
I’ve also heard that only a very small handful of staff members will be in the building alone. Many of them use a type of buddy system.
My mother works in Witherspoon. When she first arrived she would stay late many hours til about 8 to finish up work. She says she heard the piano before. She leaves with the rest of her office at 5 now. Pretty creepy stuff.
So I went to band camp this year and I kept feeling like something was in my dorm at Paine with me and I saw a shadow figure standing in front of my bathroom door and I thought I was seeing things but I also heard a loud knocking on my window along with breathing and feeling like someone touched my sides like the figure was holding me and then it let go I also had strange scratch marks on my back and I’m not the only one that experienced something in Paine three or four other friends had some experience like mine. I was crying because I couldn’t sleep and I was having a really bad panic attack st the time of lights out and it was bad.
I stayed in Caraway Hall my sophomore and junior years. Me and my roommate woke up one night to loud banging on the door and when we went to open it there was no one in sight. We saw her standing in the corner of our room around the third night we were living there. Things in our room would be moved around and randomly fall off the walls late at night. My roommate woke up one night to someone standing over her bed, which I never saw but I’m assuming it was the girl that committed suicide.
I don’t care. Sounds interesting. Wait. I guess I do care then.
I stayed in this dorm for a volleyball camp and we played hide in seek on all of the floors. we would here stuff like knocks in other rooms but when we went into take a look no one was in the rooms.
My friend and I were at Caraway the first semester at ATU in 2002. We held seances in the attic/bonus room area. Nothing overtly creepy but the building is old and the bricked up window was a source of speculation. We knew a girl had committed suicide many years before. I did experience a truck driver come into the dorm over the holiday, when most were gone, and stand in my neighbors doorway, across the hall. I asked what he was doing and he just left. He was a real person and thankfully nothing untoward happened. The campus police thought he may have popped open the door at the side of the building, as all of the doors were locked.
Definitely has a long haunted history.
I am at the college for band camp as in writing this and we’ve been hearing stops above us even though we are on the top, door handles rattling, occasional banging in the hall was, and we have friend that are all the way at the end to the left and the have been supposedly hearing knocks in there door when nobody was there, banging above the as well, music followed by crying then screaming, scratching on their bathroom door, and scratch marks, supposed “blood” on their ac, a leak by their ac.