Eerie Edinboro

Edinboro's Diebold Center
Erie County's Edinboro University was founded in 1857 as the Edinboro Academy for Teachers, and remained a teacher's institute until 1982 when it attained university status. They have nearly 8,000 students spread out over 585 acres, and it's a little slice of Scotland in the new land. Their teams are the Fighting Scots, they have a pipe band (bagpipes and drums) and host a three day Scottish games contest. Watch out for those flying tabors and burly bearded men in skirts! They're scarier than the school's many spooks.

Diebold Center For The Performing Arts: One of the older buildings on campus, the structure was erected in 1906. It's served many purposes, from gymnasium to student union, and now hosts local and university stage productions and programs. It's spook is supposed to be Dr. Dorothy Clifford, a former professor that ran the drama department.

Her story, according to one of our readers is: "Her badly decomposed body was found in her home, and the cause of her death was never determined. Some students were convinced that she was reincarnated as a particularly hideous stray cat that appeared on campus right after her death. Some of us called the cat, 'D.C' after Dr. Clifford's nickname; others called the cat 'Thing of Evil.'"

Her spook liked to fiddle with the stage volume, until some one hung a rosary on the control button. Her footsteps can be heard on the back stairs and around the stage area. Actors have reported seeing a face floating through the audience during sold out performances, as if looking for a seat. They haven't had any more trouble from Dorothy ever since the cast put out an extra chair with a program on it for her before the show.

Diebold’s namesake building today serves as a classroom, lecture, and conference facility, and houses the Intergenerational Center. There's no word on how Dorothy amuses herself now as she tries to while away eternity.

Evergreen Tavern: The tavern was over a century old, and we included it because it was a popular student hangout. Its latest incarnation was as the Hotel Evergreen. There were allegedly several spooks there, the most famous being the playful Worthington, a former employee from the turn of the century who haunted the upstairs rooms.

There were also supposed to be other unnamed ghosties that roamed the halls of the old tavern. The spooks were written up by the Edinboro student newspaper The Spectator in the 1990s, but it's not archived on-line. And sadly, we'll never be able to check it out personally - it burned down in April, 2008. Another haunt gone.

Lawrence Towers: One of the more recent dorms put up at Edinboro, the twin towers were built in 1974. The story goes that a music major committed suicide in Room 517 of Tower A. You can feel her presence in the halls, and on some nights, you can still hear her softly singing.

One of readers adds that "The elevators in the building will stop at floor five no matter what floor you want to go to before taking you to the proper floor." So take the steps if you wanna get upstairs in a hurry. (Emily wrote in and said she was told the elevator has a mechanical flaw that causes it to stop at five. So take your pick, wiring or weirdness.)

Reeder Hall: Reeder Hall was built as a dorm in 1908 until it was closed in 1972. It sat empty until 1986, when it was renovated as an administrative building. During that time, it's said that the cellar was used to hold seances and was also co-opted by a coven to celebrate occult rites. The basement is supposed to very cold, and the lights will turn themselves off. It sounds like every old cellar we've ever been in (except for the seances & witches part.)

Rose Hall: In the early 1980's a RA was reputed to have committed suicide by lighting a gas grill and sealing his room, turning it, in effect, into a gas chamber. It's said to that the victim's spirit remains behind as a poltergeist prankster, creating eerie noises and rearranging objects. Doesn't sound all that threatening, but at least one RA moved out of his Rose Hall room because he couldn't take the disturbances any longer.

The Tower Woods: A reader added this bit of woodsy lore after a visit: "If you go into the stand of trees between towers and the health center at night, you can catch some unusual goings on. We captured EVPs and orbs after disturbing whatever it is that resides there. Also, it's beyond creepy if you go into the woods behind towers. There are three trees in a triangle with large boulders at the base; odd phenomenon occur there. And don't go into the ravine in the woods after dark, flashlights won't work there, and there wasn't even light by the full moon, in the middle of winter with snow and bare trees."

Scots and spooks - our kinda school!