Est. 1903 · Charles M. Schwab Donation · George W. Atherton Grave Site · Penn State Historic Campus Core
Schwab Auditorium was constructed in 1902-1903 with a $150,000 contribution from Penn State trustee Charles M. Schwab, the steel magnate who went on to lead Bethlehem Steel. The 1,000-seat auditorium became and remains one of the central performance spaces on Penn State's University Park campus.
The building sits within the original historic core of campus, immediately adjacent to Old Main and to the grave site of George Washington Atherton, the university's seventh president. Atherton served from 1882 until his death in office in 1906; the university's transformation from the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania into a true land-grant university occurred largely under his administration.
Atherton's grave is a publicly accessible plot on the north side of Schwab Auditorium, where a granite wall and meditation area were added in 1982. His family chose the quiet spot beside the auditorium over a site in front of Old Main.
The auditorium continues to host concerts, lectures, theater productions, and university convocations, and is managed today by Penn State's Center for the Performing Arts.
Sources
- https://www.psu.edu/news/campus-life/story/penn-states-historic-university-park-campus-replete-ghost-lore
- https://www.psucollegian.com/news/campus/spooky-state-alleged-haunted-places-on-campus-and-downtown/article_953036aa-fb59-11e9-8f8f-efb79dd325e3.html
ApparitionsObject movementPhantom footstepsCold spots
Penn State's University Communications has carried the Schwab Auditorium and Old Botany ghost lore as part of its public campus history programming, and the student paper, The Daily Collegian, has run extensive features on it. The reports center on the auditorium itself, with a secondary cluster at the Old Botany Building.
Inside Schwab, performers and stage crews describe stage curtains moving when no one is near them, seats pushed down by invisible weight during performances and rising again when shows end, and footsteps in empty aisles. Reports identify two possible figures: Charles Schwab himself (the building's ghosts are affectionately known collectively as "Schwaboo"), and a soldier figure occasionally described as a Revolutionary War-era veteran. President Atherton, whose grave sits beside the auditorium, is also named in some accounts as a presence in the building.
Old Botany, across the street from Atherton's grave, is reported to host the ghost of his widow, Frances Atherton. Students describe a figure at a top-floor window looking toward her husband's grave.
Reports from the Old Botany Building, on the same historic campus quadrangle, describe carpets rolling up on their own and the sound of shattering glass after hours. Hauntbound treats these as student-tradition folklore amplified by university communications; they are well-documented in published university and student-newspaper sources but lack the kind of investigative paranormal evidence found at sites with active investigation programs.
Notable Entities
Charles M. SchwabGeorge W. AthertonFrances Atherton
