Bryan Hall clocktower
Bryan Hall clocktower

Stories about ghosts and the unexplained are common across the Pullman campus, but few are as spine-tingling as the mysterious encounters in Bryan Hall.

No gory back story, nor tragic connection to senseless violence (although those can be found elsewhere). Just a rocking chair that won’t stay put, unexplained organ music and the twilight wanderings of a spirit thought to be the building’s namesake, Enoch A. Bryan, whose presidential tenure at Washington State from 1893-1915 included a successful push to recognize the importance of a liberal arts curriculum in educating future leaders.

What makes it all the more hair-raising is the number of former faculty, staff and students who, independent of each other, tell similar stories. Here are two that were featured several years ago in Washington State Magazine.

 

Bryan Rocks

By Richard (Dick) Uthmann, BAMus. Ed 1960, MAMus. Ed 1971

From the fall of 1957, I was stage manager of Bryan Hall for the music and drama department, since both departments shared the stage of Bryan Hall. The auditorium was very heavily used for music rehearsals, drama productions, dance programs, lectures, organ practice, etc. I finally realized that the best time to aim and focus the stage lights was after the building was locked at night; as manager I had a master key to the building.

The big stage lights were located in the ceiling of the auditorium and accessed by going up the bell tower to the third floor and through a heavy steel fire door to the loft over the auditorium. Both levels of the bell tower were used for stage property storage, as was the area over the classroom section. One of the first times I went up was with an instructor and I noticed a rocking chair sitting out in the middle of the floor, so I picked it up and was going to stack it with the rest of the chairs. The instructor told me to leave it there, it belonged to E. A. Bryan and he liked to have it there. “Right” I thought, but left it there.

The next time I went up into the loft alone, the chair was out in the open, so I put it over with the other chairs and went on the fix the lights. It was late at night and I was sure no one else was in the building since the janitor left as I came and reminded me to lock the doors when I left. As I worked on the lights (they were carbon arc and very hot) I heard the fire door open and close, but saw no one there. I figured it was just the janitor checking on me and ignored it. A moment later I got really cold, even shivering, even though I was standing right over the hot light. Then the cold sensation passed and I finished the rest of the lights quickly. When I went back through the fire door, the chair was sitting in the middle of the floor, rocking. I watched for a minute, but it didn’t stop. The air around it was cold, but I wasn’t brave enough to touch the chair. I’m not sure I believe in ghosts, but I never moved that chair unless it was necessary to move props, and then it went right back in the right spot. Many times later when I went up there, no matter if it was night or day, the chair was moving slightly, but I never felt the cold again. Some things you just don’t mess with.

Ghostly meetings with “E.A.”

by Janis Clarke Waley ’70 BA, ’83 Ph.D

As a theatre major and full time denizen of Bryan Hall from 1966 to 1970 I can vouch for Mr. Uthmann’s sanity and some of his story. My fellow students and I in that era had many encounters with a benign presence that we fondly christened “E.A.”. We had all kinds of manifestations from footsteps and moving furniture to, very occasionally, some one who returned from the attics with an actual visual sighting.

One of my first “meetings” with “E.A.” happened when I was returning stage props to the lower tower storage room during “strike” one night. I had made a few trips already with the uncommonly rich haul for props from a production of “Li’l Abner” and I was doing some extra work to put things away as neatly as possible and simultaneously to pull some items for “A Christmas Carol” which was coming up next, as you did not want to waste trips to the tower. I was nearly done when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs from further up the tower. I know no one was there but the sounds were distinctly a boot on a stair tread and I decided the better part of valor at that moment was to go back to the stage and tell the technical director that I would finish in the morning and that “E.A.” was abroad. That particular faculty member had had his own occasions to interact with our ghost so he said that would be fine.

On another night my friend and I were leaving the building and we were pretty sure that no one else was around but suddenly we could hear the organ in Bryan Auditorium. Music majors who needed to rehearse on the pipe organ had keys so we thought we would stop and say hello to whoever was playing. When we opened the side door of the orchestra level, the room was empty, the organ console was neatly covered with that memorably ugly, heavy and hard to move beige wrapping, and the only illumination was the aptly named “ghost light” on the stage as the last chords of music faded away. We took a hint and just went on home.

When the main theatre activity moved over to Daggy Hall we seem to have left “E.A.” behind. I think he visited sometimes, especially when the graduate student offices were on the second floor just outside the attic door, but it was not like the old days. I have not been to Bryan Hall for a long time, but I would make one of a party to go in search of “E.A.” one more time on some quiet night.