Ghosts and Campus Hauntings: The University of North Alabama in Florence, Alabama

Four Cases of Haunted Happenings

Almost every university campus is home to at least one urban legend or supposedly haunted building. In Florence, Alabama, the local university has not avoided this fate. In fact, rumor has it that at least four, if not more, ghosts are residents who attend class more often than most freshmen.

Here are a few of the ghost stories associated with The University of North Alabama. If you're interested in more information on Alabama ghosts, visit http://theshadowlands.net/places/alabama.htm or, if you'd like more info on Florence's selection of ghostly tales, check out author Debra Glass's many books on hauntings, including her book on university spooks called Skeletons on Campus or her book on spirits of the Muscle Shoals/Florence area called Skeletons in the Closet. Debra Glass also offers local entertainment in the city of Florence. Around Halloween, she plays guide in the popular Shoals Ghost Walks, long walking tours exploring haunted locations in the downtown and university areas.

For more info on the tours, call 256-757-7506 or visit her blog at http://shoalsghostwalk.blogspot.com/ .

An Untold Secret

At the Guillot University Center, a dormitory for girls once thrived over the same grounds. The dorm existed when the university was known as Florence State Teacher's College. Apparently, during the early part of the 1900s (though interviews on the subject suggest it may have taken place closer to the mid 1900s), a student attending the college, who lived in the dorm, was said to have been keeping a serious secret. The inner torment of the mysterious secret became too much for her to bear. The distraught student committed suicide by hanging herself from the elevator shaft located in the tower of the building. To this day, the secret has never surfaced. All that is known for certain is that she believed the secret was so terrible that she had to kill herself in order to escape it.