HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The oldest building on campus anchors four distinct ghost traditions, one tied to 24 graves found beneath a library in 1999
720 4th Ave S, Saint Cloud, MN 56301
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public university campus; grounds and exterior accessible at no charge
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus paths; multiple buildings across a flat urban campus
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1904 · 1904 Lawrence Hall — oldest campus building · 1999 grave discovery during Miller Learning Center construction · 19th-century settler burial ground beneath campus
Lawrence Hall, completed in 1904, is the oldest building still standing on the St. Cloud State campus and anchors the campus's ghost tradition among the four sites. The building served through multiple institutional iterations — the school was a normal college before becoming a state university — and the transition layered decades of student memory into its corridors.
Riverview Hall (1911) is the second historic building with a documented ghost tradition, connected in campus lore to sounds heard in its upper corridors. Shoemaker Hall carries a century-old legend about a basement death, details of which circulate primarily through student oral tradition and have not been independently verified in historical records.
The most tangible dark-history event on campus occurred in 1999, when construction of the Miller Learning Resources Center unearthed 24 graves. Local press coverage documented the discovery: the graves belonged to nineteenth-century settlers whose burial ground had been incorporated into the campus without formal record-keeping or relocation. The university worked with archaeologists to address the discovery. The site where the graves were found now sits beneath the completed library, an arrangement that has contributed to subsequent lore about the building.
Sources
WJON and Minnesota's New Country have both covered the campus ghost traditions in detail. Lawrence Hall's reported phenomena center on the older sections of the building, where staff and students have described sounds and cold areas not explained by the building's aging HVAC. Riverview Hall's legend involves a woman heard pacing in heels on the upper floor — a figure never identified but consistent in description across multiple student accounts.
The Miller Learning Resources Center presents the most structurally interesting case: its ghost tradition began almost immediately after the building opened, once the 1999 grave discovery became part of campus memory. Minnesota's New Country documented the history of St. Cloud's forgotten cemeteries, placing the Miller discovery within a broader pattern of nineteenth-century burial grounds absorbed by development without relocation.
Shoemaker Hall's tradition involves a basement room and a death attributed to the early twentieth century — a claim that circulates in campus oral history but lacks corroboration in the newspaper record available to researchers.
The SCSU campus includes four buildings with documented ghost traditions: Lawrence Hall (1904, the oldest structure), Riverview Hall (1911), Shoemaker Hall, and the Miller Learning Resources Center, whose construction in 1999 unearthed 24 graves from a nineteenth-century settler burial ground. The campus is publicly accessible, though building interiors are primarily for students and staff.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Madison, WI
Memorial Union at the University of Wisconsin-Madison opened in 1928 as both a student union and a war memorial honoring veterans of World War I. Plans for the building began in 1919 and groundbreaking took place on Armistice Day 1925 before a crowd of 5,000. The Union sits on the shores of Lake Mendota and remains one of the university's most visited public spaces.
Lincoln, NE
Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska was founded in 1887 by Methodist leaders and grew into a liberal arts institution. The campus's paranormal reputation centers on Clara Urania Mills, a music professor and department chair who taught piano, music theory, and music history at the university for 28 years before dying of a heart attack at her desk on April 12, 1940.
Mansfield, PA
North Hall at what is now Commonwealth University-Mansfield was constructed in the 1870s and expanded around 1908 with a six-story interior atrium known as the Well. The Well was sealed for fire safety in 1930, and the building closed in the 1970s before reopening as the North Hall Library in 1996. Mansfield University merged into Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania in 2022 and the Mansfield campus remains active.