Iowa's most-cited crisis apparition case: three library staff saw a regular patron here hours after her death in a house fire in October 1962
410 3rd Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Research updated June 2026
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Est. 1905 · 1905 Carnegie-funded public library — one of Iowa's major Carnegie buildings · Cedar Rapids Public Library 1905-1985 · Converted to Cedar Rapids Museum of Art 1985 · Site of 1962 Hazel McGrew crisis apparition — documented by Cedar Rapids Gazette
The building at 410 3rd Avenue SE was completed in 1905 as the Cedar Rapids Public Library, funded by a Carnegie library grant. The Carnegie program, which supported over 2,500 libraries in the United States between 1883 and 1929, funded the construction of this Beaux-Arts structure to serve as the city's main public library. It operated in that role for eight decades.
In 1985 the library relocated to a new facility and the building was converted into the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. The CRMA holds a significant collection of works by Grant Wood and Iowa Regionalist artists, and the Carnegie building's civic architectural presence gives it an institutional weight that art museums often seek in historic structures.
On the morning of October 10, 1962, three library employees reported seeing Hazel McGrew — a regular patron well known to the staff — descending the library's main staircase. Nothing unusual seemed to have occurred. It was later revealed that McGrew had died in a house fire the previous evening. The Cedar Rapids Gazette documented the account in 2020, interviewing sources and confirming the timeline: McGrew's death on the evening of October 9, and the three employees' sighting the following morning.
Sources
The 1962 incident at what was then the Cedar Rapids Public Library is among the most precisely documented crisis apparition accounts in Iowa. A crisis apparition is the reported perception of a person — often at the moment of or shortly after their death — by someone who had no contemporaneous knowledge of that event.
On the morning of October 10, 1962, three library staff members independently reported seeing Hazel McGrew, a woman familiar to them as a regular patron, in the building. McGrew was seen on or near the main staircase. The employees had no reason to find her presence unusual. The news arrived later that day: McGrew had died the previous evening in a house fire. The Cedar Rapids Gazette's 2020 account, part of the paper's Time Machine retrospective series, confirmed the three-witness structure of the account and the timeline of McGrew's death.
The staircase where McGrew was reported remains intact in the building, which now operates as the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. The incident is frequently cited in Iowa ghost lore as a case that predates modern paranormal entertainment culture and involves named witnesses making contemporaneous reports.
Notable Entities
The 1905 Carnegie-funded building now houses the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, with collections emphasizing Grant Wood and Iowa Regionalist artists. The building's staircase was the site of Iowa's most-documented crisis apparition report in 1962.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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