Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainBuilt in 1914, this women's dormitory on the NAU campus has housed the legend of 'Kathy the Ghost' since the 1950s — a student said to have died by suicide during Christmas break
224 McMullen Circle, Flagstaff, AZ 86011
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
NAU campus is open to the public during daylight hours; Morton Hall is a residential building and its interior is not open to non-residents.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat campus sidewalks; exterior viewable from public paths
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1914 · One of NAU's original 1914 campus buildings · Named for faculty member Mary Morton Pollock · Colonial Revival architecture — north campus historic cluster
Morton Hall was completed in 1914 during the early expansion of Arizona State College — the institution that would eventually become Northern Arizona University. Designed in the Colonial Revival style with a Neo-Romanesque grand entry arch, it was built on the northern edge of campus as a women's residence hall. The hall was named for Mary Morton Pollock, a faculty member at the college.
At the time of construction, Morton was one of the largest buildings on the campus and contained a dining hall and a music room; the music room was subsequently converted into a women's library, also named for Pollock. The building's brick construction and formal entryway made it one of the more architecturally distinctive structures on the north campus, where several nearly identical dormitories were built in the same period.
Morton Hall remains an active undergraduate residence hall on the NAU campus. Its status as one of the oldest continuously occupied buildings on campus, combined with its well-known ghost legend, has made it a consistent subject of campus folklore documentation and local press coverage over the past several decades.
Sources
The 'Kathy legend' has circulated at NAU since at least the 1960s. The core account: a 19-year-old student named Kathy, living in Morton Hall around December 1953, could not return home for Christmas break because her family had gone bankrupt. Her boyfriend, who also remained on campus, left her for another student. Overwhelmed, Kathy took her own life by hanging near the attic staircase, wearing a blue nightgown. A cleaning woman who worked at the school for the next 30 years reportedly discovered the body and became the primary witness to ground the story in something resembling a documented event.
NAU's own campus history project has catalogued the legend without confirming or refuting the underlying death record — the 1953 date places it at Arizona State College, which maintained less systematic student welfare records than the university does today. An alternative version of the story sets Kathy's death in the early 1940s and ties it to a sailor fiancé who died in World War II; this variant is less commonly told.
Reported phenomena are consistent across decades of resident accounts: radios and lights turning on and off without explanation, with the radios tending toward channels playing 1950s music; women finding themselves locked inside bathroom stalls despite the absence of an interior lock; sightings of a woman in a blue nightgown moving through closed doors and down hallways; blankets pulled from sleeping residents; and an unexplained rose scent associated with Kathy's supposed favorite fragrance. One resident reported the condemned balcony door found unlocked and open after it had been secured.
Notable Entities
Morton Hall is a Colonial Revival brick building on the northern edge of NAU's historic campus, built in 1914. The exterior and surrounding lawns are viewable from public campus pathways. The building is an active residence hall, so interior access is restricted to residents. Named for faculty member Mary Morton Pollock, the hall is architecturally similar to several of NAU's other original north campus buildings.
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