A 1932 Collegiate Gothic education building whose persistent legend — children dying in an elevator accident — was investigated during a 2018 renovation and found to have no documentary basis.
1221 SW 5th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public university campus; free to walk the exterior and access the building during normal operating hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Campus grounds with paved walkways; building has accessible entries
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1932 · National Register of Historic Places (1990) · Collegiate Gothic Architecture by Rudolph Weaver · P.K. Yonge Laboratory School — UF Research Education
Norman Hall was designed by Rudolph Weaver, the University of Florida's supervising architect during its early twentieth-century building campaign, and completed in 1932 by contractor Paul Smith Construction Co. The building was originally known as the P.K. Yonge Laboratory School — named for prominent Florida businessman and Board of Control member Philip Keyes Yonge — and functioned as the university's research and development campus school for primary and secondary students.
The Collegiate Gothic exterior is one of the more ornate on the UF campus, with pointed arch windows, stone gargoyle-style carvings, and an imposing symmetrical facade. The building's current name honors James W. Norman, a former dean of the College of Education, reflecting the institution's transition from a research school to an education graduate center.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 26, 1990. A major renovation and rehabilitation project began in 2018, during which the College of Education took the opportunity to formally address the long-circulating ghost legend — acknowledging in a groundbreaking statement that no documentation could be found to support the story of children dying in an elevator accident. The building now houses faculty offices, classrooms, and the College of Education's administrative operations.
Sources
The Norman Hall legend has circulated on the University of Florida campus long enough that its specific details have shifted across generations of retelling. The consistent core: children enrolled in the original P.K. Yonge Laboratory School died in an elevator accident sometime in the 1930s, and their spirits remain on the third floor — audible as laughter and footsteps to students and faculty working late.
Students have consistently reported hearing sounds in the upper corridors at night that have no ready explanation, and the building's Collegiate Gothic architecture — gargoyles, shadowed archways, pointed windows — reinforces the atmosphere. The legend has been covered in UF student publications and local ghost-tour roundups for years.
What distinguishes the Norman Hall case is institutional engagement. When the College of Education began a major rehabilitation project in 2018, the building's haunted reputation was explicit enough that the college addressed it directly: a groundbreaking ceremony statement noted that no documentation or living eyewitnesses had been found to verify a fatal elevator accident ever occurred. No contemporaneous newspaper accounts surfaced, and no physical evidence from the renovation supported the story.
This puts Norman Hall in a specific category — not a debunked legend exactly, but one whose origin remains unknown. The 1930s children and the elevator are either undocumented history or invented lore; the building's own institutional caretakers cannot say which.
Norman Hall is a well-preserved 1932 Collegiate Gothic building on UF's eastern campus with gargoyles and pointed arch windows. It is the principal building of the College of Education. The building is accessible during normal university hours; the exterior and grounds can be viewed any time.
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