The Haunting: The Downtown Library

By Ryan Petrovich

The haunting of West Virginia University parts one and two are in the books. HA! Get it?

Wait…I forgot to mention that part three is about the downtown library. Okay, now go back and read the first sentence.

Funny, right?

Anyway, doesn’t West Virginia’s downtown library seem like the perfect place for ghost to gather and do whatever it is ghosts do when they’re not busy scaring the piss out of people? This is especially true for the large reading rooms. You know, the one’s where it’s the “deep quiet zone” and if you even as so much as breath wrong someone gives you that, “Hey, shut the hell up” look.

This makes so much sense. It seriously looks like Hogwarts in those rooms. You feel like the giant paintings are watching you and that Nearly Headless Nick will just pop up during your cram session.

According to Jason Burns, the professional storyteller who gave us all these spooky facts, there’s actually a haunted feline roaming the large reading rooms.

“People have said when they’re studying they see a cat appear,” Burns said. “They got to pet the cat when it’s on the table and their hands go right through it.”

Burns says it’s a not the traditional black cat that people alway see at Halloween or in the horror films. This cat is grey.

While we know that everyone of your friends tells fantasy stories about “pussies,” the morning after a night out, but if this one comes up, he may be telling the truth.

The haunted kitty isn’t the only ghost roaming the downtown library. Burns says there’s another ghost, a scarier one at that.

The Ghost of Mr. Stewart haunts the library as well.

“The ninth or tenth floor of the library is used for storage,” Burns said. “But, people who have been up there have claimed to see Mr. Stewart who lives up there.”

Back in the 1930’s when the Wise Library was being built one the construction workers forgot to block off the elevator shaft — leaving a gaping hole. Mr. Stewart apparently fell down the the hole and died.

I guess you could say he really got shafted…

I’d haunt the damn place too if someone didn’t block off the elevator shaft and I fell through. Safety first, kids.

While Mr. Stewart and the cat gives us the willies, our own Steven Laks shared a story with me that perhaps adds another ghost to the mix.

Steven said that one late night in the library, for whatever reason, he and the people he was studying with were talking about ghosts. That apparently sparked the interest of one of the nearby custodians who came into the study room and shared that he was once in the basement of the library well after hours and encountered a girl.

Laks told me the the custodian gave off the vibe of someone who has seen a ghost. He said the custodian asked the girl to leave and when he approached her, she turned around and had no eyes. He proceeded to run away.

What a funny little story to tell a bunch of already sleep deprived college students who have been studying all night.

The Downtown Library isn’t a fun place to be for more ways than one, but if you ever need a study buddy, just ask Mr. Stewart to go through some flash cards with you.

Next up: E. Moore Hall — One “moore” to go!