Spooky Southwest
Image of the exterior of Southwest Hall taken by Megan Silva.
Currently sitting vacant, one of the oldest dormitories on campus has captured the imagination of many. Southwest Hall has been the subject of a screenplay, several ghost stories, and was used as a location for an exterior shot in the film Dead Man on Campus.
I spoke with archivist Mike Wurtz about the history of this building, and about the possibility of it being haunted. In response to rumors about Southwest Hall being a former asylum, he stated that “People can have all the ghosts they want on campus, but if they decide to link a story to it, make sure the story is true.” Southwest Hall was never an asylum, it was always a dormitory.
Built in 1924 and originally called Women’s Hall, Southwest was a three story building described in the 1926 edition of Naranjado as “a place of comfort and beauty”. It boasted a lobby with three parlors (one of them has a gorgeous old piano), and bedrooms with “steam heat, and hot and cold running water”. This referred to the sinks that are still present in the bedrooms, which has led many students to believe that Southwest Hall was a hospital. It was not, although the Finance Center was once an infirmary called West Infirmary, which is likely the source of the confusion. Wurtz hypothesized that if anywhere on campus is likely to be haunted, it would be the Finance Center.
I recently gained access to Southwest Hall to take photos, and found it to be a beautiful place, even if it has started to fall into disrepair. I fell in love with the beautiful wood paneling, the detailed paintings on the lobby walls, and the air conditioner that looks like a dragon. At this point, the future of Southwest Hall is uncertain. At Homecoming, there was talk of tearing it down, though the future of the building will not be formally decided until November. I sincerely hope that during any reconstruction or renovations that may take place, that the artwork and wood is preserved. I have donated my photos of this space to the Holt-Atherton Special Collections.
Though Southwest Hall was never a hospital, it was used during the pandemic as a quarantine space to house students who had become ill with COVID-19. I have been unable to find a published record of this on the university’s website, but I reached out to several students and RAs who were able to tell me a bit about this period of time in the university’s history. I have kept all of my sources anonymous due to concerns about conflict of interest with Housing and Residential Life. The following is not intended to be a criticism of Housing and Residential life, it is merely creating a public record of student experience during the second pandemic in the university’s history (the first being influenza, which has been discussed in a 1919 publication of Naranjado).
A student who was quarantined there stated that she did karaoke to fill the silence, and was fortunate to have family drop off food and water. She stated that Housing could be unreliable with providing food, but that they eventually provided money so that students could order food. Due to the presence of spider webs in the window (which I observed during my visit) and a dead cockroach on the floor, she “felt sorta abandoned since the building didn’t feel completely kept up”.
Another student wrote a screenplay about a friend’s experience that was loosely based on reality. It can be inferred to be a ghost story, and is a very creative piece of literature. In the beginning of the screenplay, a student is taken to quarantine via golf-cart, and told they cannot leave until they test negative. This portion of the screenplay appears to be accurate to the actual lived experience of quarantined students.
I also spoke with a few RAs about their experience with the building. In the later part of the pandemic, healthy students were living on the first floor while students with COVID-19 were still being quarantined on the second and third floors of the buildings. The RAs were not informed that this was taking place, and were inadvertently exposed to the virus. One RA stated that the building felt like “leftover housing”, and difficult to navigate due to the connected buildings.
Southwest Hall is undoubtedly a spooky place, the Gothic architecture and the recent emergency usage of the building make it the perfect setting for a ghost story. Though the building is not currently open to the public, the beautiful murals in the lobby (which can look ghostly if you think about it enough) can be viewed from the window on the entrance closest to the library.
