Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA Benedictine monastery and college founded in 1858 on bluffs above the Missouri River, where students report the spirits of founding monks and poltergeist activity in dormitory rooms.
1020 N 2nd St, Atchison, KS 66002
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Campus is accessible to the public for self-guided exterior visits at no cost. Interior building access depends on campus policy and event schedules.
Access
Wheelchair OK
120-acre campus on bluffs above the Missouri River; paved paths between buildings, some elevation change.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1858 · Founded 1858 by Benedictine monks as St. Benedict's College, one of Kansas's earliest colleges · Merged 1971 with Mount St. Scholastica College to form co-educational Benedictine College · 120-acre campus on bluffs above Missouri River in Atchison · Part of Atchison's identity as Kansas's most haunted city
Two Benedictine monks arrived in Atchison in 1858 from Doniphan, Kansas, establishing St. Benedict's College as a boarding school on the bluffs above the Missouri River. The site's elevation and river views made it one of the more distinctive campus locations in territorial Kansas, and the Benedictine community built its institutional identity into the landscape over the following generations.
The college formally opened in 1859 as St. Benedict's College. It operated continuously as a Catholic institution for men through the twentieth century, developing a campus of historic stone and brick buildings set along the bluffs. In 1971, St. Benedict's College merged with Mount St. Scholastica College — a women's institution founded in 1923 — to form co-educational Benedictine College. The merged institution celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008, counting from the 1858 founding of St. Benedict's.
The campus today spans 120 acres and serves over 1,000 students. Notable buildings include the Abbey Church and the O'Malley-McAllister Auditorium, which seats approximately 545 people. Mary's Grotto was dedicated by Archbishop Joseph Naumann in 2009. In 2014, the student union was renamed the St. John Paul II Student Center on the canonization day of both Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.
Ferrell Hall dormitory and Memorial Hall are among the campus buildings most associated with the college's paranormal reputation in local accounts. Both are active campus buildings used by current students.
Sources
The campus haunting accounts at Benedictine College divide between two dormitory buildings on the historic bluff-top campus.
In Ferrell Hall, the reported presence is attributed to the founding Benedictine monks — the two who arrived in 1858 and those who followed them in establishing the institution. Students who have described the presence characterize it as protective rather than hostile, a spirit of monastic guardianship tied to the institution these monks founded. Lights flickering in campus buildings have been reported by students at various points.
Memorial Hall carries two specific accounts that are more unusual than the general sense-of-presence reports common to old campus buildings. In one, a student returned to her room to find that a heavy dresser had been moved in front of her closet door, trapping her inside. Her roommate had been out of the room, and no other person had access. In the second, another student watched her desk chair begin to rock on its own and then stop abruptly — the motion beginning and ending without external cause.
The college's own student media has engaged with Atchison's haunted reputation, noting that the campus's Gothic stone buildings and bluff-top isolation contribute to an atmosphere that shapes how students interpret unexplained sounds and events. The accounts from Memorial Hall are specific enough — a dresser in front of a door, a chair that stops — to have circulated through local oral tradition in a consistent form.
Benedictine College sits at the northern end of Atchison's haunted corridor, on the same stretch of bluff that made the city a Missouri River landmark in the nineteenth century.
Benedictine College's 120-acre campus overlooks the Missouri River. Historic campus buildings including Ferrell Hall dormitory and Memorial Hall are viewable on a self-guided walk. The Abbey Church and Mount St. Scholastica Monastery are also on or adjacent to campus.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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