The PSU haunted building

Stories about ghosts in McCray Hall persist for decades

Val Vita

It was 7 p.m on Sunday, about a month ago, when Jorge Roque left his dorm, at Willard, and walked to McCray Hall. He usually does this at Sunday nights, after he finishes his homework. He goes to the music building to play the piano and relax.  

Because it was Sunday, there was nobody there and the lights were off. When he got closed to the stairs he heard a whisper. A woman’s voice. 

“Come here, come here,” she said.

“I thought it was someone that I know that it was calling me, since I go there frequently to play the piano,” says Roque, an exchange student majoring in political science. “I thought it was a friend.”

He says he looked around and got up the stairs, but didn’t see anybody.

“I pretended nothing happened and passed through.”

Roque is not the only student who had this kind of creepy experience inside Pittsburg State University most famous building. McCray Hall, the music building, is nationally known for being haunted.

There are several stories about ghosts in McCray. No one knows if they are real, no one knows how they started. But the stories are there, and some students cannot get inside McCray without having the cold spots.

Alheli Aranda, sophomore in music, says that she already heard that there was an organ student, a girl, who fell in love with a teacher. Since she could never be with him, she decided to commit suicide, jumping of McCray roof.

“So her ghost is still here,” says Aranda. “The other story is more convincing, I think. There was a fire in Russ Hall, where students studied music before McCray, and a girl who played the piano died there.”

She says the rumors say that the room 318 in McCray is the worst, but she never stops practicing because of these scary stories.

“The building is so big, that when you are there by yourself is really scary. Students say they listen to the organ late at night and that is McGray ghost, but actually, is just us practicing,” Aranda said.   

In addition to the story about the girl who jumped of the roof and the girl who died in the fire, there are some other ones. Students who frequent McCray report seeing the apparition of a woman in a black dress. Some believe it is the ghost of the girl (yes, another girl) who hanged herself in the piano room.

Daniel Benitz, who play the piano, says he is aware of the ghosts stories that people tell about McCray. But he doesn’t seem scared at all, even though he plays the same musical instrument of one of the girl whose ghost “haunts” McCray. Actually, he doesn’t take the story serious at all.

“They turn all the lights off at night so it’s pretty dark, but I've never seen anything. And I usually stayed in the building until 2 am practicing,” says Benitz, graduated in Master's in Music Performance. “I would like to see the ghost, talk to him. But he's never there!”

The stories about ghosts in McCray are told since 1960, according to Randy Roberts, curator of Special Collections at Axe Library. He says, although, that nobody knows the origin of it.

“There are a lot of people interested in paranormal activities,” says Roberts. “Several paranormal psychic research people came to McCray to study this, because is already traditional that McCray is a haunted building.”

Roberts says that he always listen to the students telling that they were there, late at night, and heard music playing. When they get close of the room, the music stops.

Another creepy story, according to him, was about a janitor, who said that he was cleaning a large room on McCray second floor and he lifted the chairs up. When he came back a few minutes later, all the chairs were turned on the other side.

“And some people say that a music instructor died unexpectedly inside McCray. But I never saw proof of this death,” Roberts said.

Robert’s interest is not the ghosts’ stories, but the real story about McCray. The building was opened in 1929, a decade when the most important buildings of campus were constructed.

“Most of the buildings around the oval were there at that time. McCray was the last piece,” Roberts said.

McCray Hall cost $150,000 and it was the first building dedicated exclusively to music courses. Music majors, before McCray exists, used to have classes at Russ Hall. The building was named like that because of Walter McCray, chair of music department from 1914 until 1947.

McCray was a well-known musician in Kansas, who played the cornet. Roberts says it was McCray who started the Spring Music Festival, a project that was very important to the music program, since brought hundreds of students to the building every year.

“He really gave Pitt State national reputation,” Roberts said.

McCray died in 1959 and it was only two years after his dead that the building started to be known as “McCray Hall”. Before that, it was only Music Hall.

One of McCray building biggest attractions is the organ installed in the first floor. The instrument, at first side, is breathtaking. Its installation, in 1995, was one of McCray big events, Roberts says, since it was a major project. A lot of money was invested in the organ, especially designed in a company in Boston to fix in the room.

Daniel Benitz says a lot of famous artists have already been in McCray, like the members of Count Basie Orchestra, for example. He also mentions the Solo and Chamber Music Series (SCMS), a national and international renowned artists perform that happens in McCray Recital Hall.

“I've been to every SCMS concert since I started studying here, in Fall 2009,” Benitz said. “It's a concert series, when outstanding artists are invited to perform for Pitt State students and the community.”