Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA campus meat laboratory where a foreman bled to death in 1959, and custodial crews still leave the basement elevator open at night for his spirit.
474 Olsen Blvd, College Station, TX 77843
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Texas A&M College of Agriculture facility · 1959 fatal workplace accident in meat laboratory · Custodial folk tradition surrounding the 1959 death
The Texas A&M Animal Industries Building houses the university's meat science operations, including a teaching and research laboratory that has trained generations of agriculture students. Roy Lee Simms served for years as a foreman in the facility's meat locker and cutting operations.
On November 14, 1959, Simms was working alone in the basement when he severed his femoral artery during a meat-cutting operation. He bled to death in the laboratory before anyone could respond. His death left a lasting mark on the people who worked the building's late shifts in subsequent years.
Local television station KBTX documented the story in 2013, interviewing custodial staff who reported ongoing unexplained activity: screaming heard from unoccupied areas, doors slamming without cause, and the basement elevator moving between floors with no passengers. A tradition developed among the cleaning crew — they leave the basement elevator doors standing open so that Simms' spirit has a resting place rather than being trapped between floors. The practice reportedly continues to this day.
Sources
Cleaning crews working early-morning shifts in the Animal Industries Building have reported screaming from empty areas, doors slamming on their own, and the basement elevator operating without anyone aboard. The reports cluster around the lower level where Simms died, and have been consistent enough across decades that a specific protocol emerged: leave the basement elevator doors open at the end of a shift.
The tradition is practical in origin — workers reasoned that if Simms was trapped, an open elevator gave him somewhere to be. KBTX reported the practice in 2013 as an active custom, not historical, with current custodial staff describing it as standard operating procedure on their late shifts.
Good Bull Hunting, a Texas A&M campus sports and culture site, covered the story the same year, confirming the broad circulation of the Simms legend within the university community. The Animal Industries Building is consistently named among the most credibly documented haunted locations on the TAMU campus, its reputation grounded in a verified death rather than unattributed campus rumor.
Notable Entities
Visitors can walk to the Animal Industries Building on the Texas A&M campus, view the exterior, and learn about the 1959 death of Roy Lee Simms and the cleaning crew tradition that has persisted for decades. Interior access is restricted to university personnel.
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