1912 Tudor Dormitory Watched Over by Its First Dean of Women
345 Monmouth Avenue North, Monmouth, OR 97361
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Active university campus. Exterior viewing free; interior access limited to students and faculty during academic hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved campus walkways
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1912 · Early-20th-Century Teacher Training · Tudor Revival Architecture
Western Oregon University's Monmouth campus traces its origin to Christian College, founded in 1856, which was reorganized as Oregon State Normal School in 1882 to train teachers for the Pacific Northwest. The institution went through several name changes through the twentieth century before becoming Western Oregon University in 1997.
Todd Hall was built in 1912 as the school's first purpose-built dormitory, originally housing female students who attended the Oregon Normal School. The Tudor-style building was expanded in 1917 and again in 1921. It was named in honor of Jessica M. Todd, who served as the first Dean of Women and played a major role in fundraising for the building's construction. According to The Western Howl student newspaper and the WOU buildings archive, Todd retired from the school in 1931 after a long tenure managing the women's dormitory and student life. She was known among students for a stern attitude paired with deep care for the women in her charge, including a reputed habit of locking the dormitory door at curfew on students who arrived late.
Todd died in 1944 in Pennsylvania, after retirement. The building has been retained on campus through successive eras and is now used for academic offices and classrooms rather than residential life. The Behavioral Sciences department occupies offices in Room 325, and the Child Development Center operates programming in the building. Todd Hall received a centennial recognition in 2012.
Sources
The Todd Hall folklore is unusually well-documented in primary university sources. Today at WOU, the institution's official news outlet, has run multiple feature pieces on the building, including interviews with current staff and references to a long oral tradition among campus security. Since 1980, accounts from staff and students have described the same handful of phenomena: lights observed in the highest windows when the building is locked and empty, mists or thick atmospheric distortion in hallways, abrupt temperature changes, objects rearranged overnight, and disembodied voices in the basement.
Campus security periodically receives motion-detector alerts in Todd Hall when no one is present. Officers searching the building have not located a person. A surveillance camera once captured a bright unexplained light during off-hours in a locked, unoccupied building. The Western Howl student newspaper has covered these reports since the 1990s, including a satirical piece titled 'Todd Hall ghost demands salary' that documents the phenomenon as part of campus culture.
In 2009, the Pacific Northwest Paranormal Research Society conducted an investigation in the building. According to coverage in The Western Howl, the team found no conclusive evidence supporting a haunting. The folklore has continued regardless. The presence is consistently framed in terms of Jessica Todd herself, the woman whose authority defined the building's first decades, returned to watch over the women, and now the academic departments, that have followed.
Notable Entities
Walk the Western Oregon University campus and view the Tudor-style exterior of Todd Hall, built in 1912 with additions in 1917 and 1921. Todd Hall now houses the Behavioral Sciences office, the Modern Languages department, the Child Development Center, and the Teaching Research Institute. Public access is limited to building hours during the academic term.
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