Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA 1940 women's residence hall at the University of Northern Iowa whose attic spawned the campus's most enduring ghost, "Augie," documented in student newspapers since the 1970s.
2401 Hudson Road, Cedar Falls, IA 50613
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Active student residence hall; interior is not open to the public. Exterior viewable from public campus walkways.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus sidewalks; the residence hall interior is restricted to residents and guests
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1940 · University of Northern Iowa Campus History · WPA-Funded Construction · World War II WAVES Housing
Lawther Hall sits on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls. Construction began in November 1938 and the building opened in the summer of 1940, initially housing 293 women residents. It was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm Keffer and Jones at a cost of roughly $400,000, with $180,000 contributed by federal Works Progress Administration funds. Before receiving its permanent name in June 1940, the structure was variously called "The Addition to Bartlett Hall," "The Residence Hall," and "West Hall."
The hall is named for Anna B. Lawther, the first woman appointed to Iowa's State Board of Education, on which she served from 1921 to 1941. The building is physically attached to the adjacent Bartlett Hall and shares a nearly identical floor plan, a detail that has fueled longstanding confusion in campus ghost lore about which building is actually "haunted."
During World War II, beginning in December 1942, Lawther Hall housed U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) personnel, with college women crowded four to a room to make space. An addition was constructed in 1947-1948 to house roughly 200 more students. Over the following decades the hall transitioned through evolving residential social policies, and by 1979 residents had voted overwhelmingly for a 24-hour visitation policy.
Contrary to a persistent campus legend, Lawther Hall was never used as an infirmary, and it has always housed women rather than male soldiers. The University of Northern Iowa's own Special Collections and University Archives documents the building's continuous use as a women's residence hall and as WAVES military housing during the war.
Sources
The University of Northern Iowa's Special Collections and University Archives identifies "Augie" as the campus's most enduring ghost legend, centered on Lawther Hall's attic. Campus lore holds that Augie was a World War II soldier who died in the building when it allegedly served as an infirmary. University records contradict this origin story: Lawther opened in 1940 as a women's dormitory, served as WAVES housing during the war, and was never an infirmary. The legend's factual underpinnings are therefore apocryphal, even as the folklore itself is well documented.
Reports of Augie appear in UNI student newspapers as early as 1977, when he was credited with rearranging bulletin-board lettering to read "Augie will return to haunt Bordeaux House." According to the university archives, incidents attributed to Augie include posters removed from walls and radios and water fixtures switching on by themselves. In 1992 a resident assistant reported seeing a man in a striped outfit walking down a hall while the building was closed; he vanished into a women's restroom that was found empty. In 1999 two residents reported hearing footsteps and feeling something pass through their legs at 3 a.m. A private investigator was reportedly hired in the 1970s, and the legend was featured on Iowa Public Broadcasting's "Take One" in October 1985.
From 1980 to 1997 the hall ran a Halloween haunted house called "Augie's Attic" in the building's upper recreational rooms, drawing between 400 and 1,000 visitors annually. The event was moved to the basement in 1997 because of fire-code regulations and roof damage. Because Lawther shares a floor plan with the attached Bartlett Hall, some accounts suggest the two buildings have been conflated in the retelling of the legend over the years.
Notable Entities
View the 1940 Lawther Hall residence hall from public campus walkways. The interior is an active women's residence hall and is not open to the public; the building's history and the Augie legend can be appreciated from the exterior.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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