Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA 1937 elevator death in the campus admin building left behind a ghost story that has outlasted generations of CMU students.
802 University Avenue, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to access as a public university building during operating hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus pathways; building is ADA-accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1892 · Central Michigan University Administration · 1937 Industrial Fatality · Campus Ghost Lore
Warriner Hall anchors the center of Central Michigan University's Mount Pleasant campus and has served as the university's main administrative building for over a century. The building's limestone exterior and formal proportions have made it a campus landmark, but it is a specific and well-documented death inside that defines its reputation in paranormal circles.
On June 12, 1937, Theresa Elizabeth Schumacher — a 19-year-old CMU cafeteria worker from a nearby Michigan town — died when her head was pinned between an elevator car and a fixed bar near the top of the elevator shaft. The death was reported and documented at the time; her name, age, and the mechanism of injury are corroborated by multiple regional sources. She was not a student, and the accident occurred in the course of ordinary work.
In the decades since, her story has become one of the most persistent ghost narratives on the CMU campus. Regional radio and the university's own student newspaper, Central Michigan Life, have published accounts of the haunting at regular intervals. Reports cluster around the theater spaces in the building: actors describe being touched by unseen hands during rehearsals, technicians report blue lights visible near the rafters, and some claim to see a young woman's apparition in the upper levels of the building. The 1937 death is treated as the origin point of all of these accounts.
The accident itself predates modern elevator safety regulations by decades. The specific mechanism — a head caught between a moving car and a structural member at the top of the shaft — represents an era of industrial equipment with lethal tolerances. The elevator has since been updated or removed, but Schumacher's death remains one of the more thoroughly sourced tragic incidents in Michigan campus history.
Sources
CMU's paranormal tradition around Warriner Hall centers entirely on Theresa Schumacher and the elevator death of 1937. Her name is specific, her death is documented, and the haunting reports are consistent across decades of student journalism.
The reported phenomena concentrate in the building's performance and upper-floor areas. Actors working late rehearsals describe feeling something press against them from behind when no one else is nearby. Technical crew members report unexplained blue-tinged lights seen moving near the ceiling of the stage area. Some accounts include a figure — described consistently as a young woman — seen in the upper portions of the building, visible briefly before disappearing.
Central Michigan Life, the university's student newspaper, has revisited the story multiple times across decades, most recently in 2025. Regional outlets including 99.1 WFMK have also documented the tradition. The longevity of the specific, named-person account is unusual compared to more generic campus ghost stories, which typically feature an anonymous figure. Schumacher's documented existence gives the Warriner Hall legend an unusual evidentiary anchor.
Notable Entities
Warriner Hall is the main administrative building on CMU's central campus. Visitors can walk the public corridors and lobby, where the 1937 elevator shaft that claimed Theresa Schumacher's life once operated. The building is a working university office; respectful self-guided exploration of public areas is welcome during business hours.
Some links on this page may earn HauntBound a small commission when you book, at no extra cost to you. Our editorial picks are independent. Full disclosure
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Free Guide
10 verified stops, rated for families, mapped in order. Free.
One email to confirm, then the guide link. Unsubscribe anytime.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPPensacola, FL
The Museum of Shadows is the creation of Nate Raterman, a demonologist and paranormal investigator with more than two decades of casework. Raterman opened the original location in Omaha, Nebraska, and the Pensacola branch opened in late 2024. The collection contains over 5,000 objects that Raterman and his team deemed genuinely active during investigations — ranging from allegedly cursed Ouija boards and haunted dolls to items used in criminal acts and human remains. The museum bills itself as the most haunted museum in the world.
Marquette, MI
Northern Michigan University was established in 1899 in Marquette, on the Lake Superior shoreline of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The John X. Jamrich Hall, a major classroom and lecture facility on campus, houses a large ground-level lecture room used for film screenings; its attached control room is a small storage space where nursing students historically recorded their names on the wall before graduation.
Mason, OH
Kings Island opened in April 1972 after Paramount Parks relocated from flood-prone Coney Island on the Ohio River. Construction of the 364-acre site in Mason, Warren County, required working around a pre-existing pioneer burial ground — Dogstreet Cemetery, dating to at least 1803 — which remains at the north end of the parking lot to this day.