The 800-seat theater at Stephen F. Austin State University has been home to 'Chester' since 1967 — a presence that first appeared as a luminous face during a production of Tiny Alice and has since disrupted performances with rogue spotlights, phantom footsteps, and a photograph verified by Kodak.
2222 Alumni Drive, Nacogdoches, TX 75962
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Performance tickets required for most events; SFA Fine Arts Box Office. Campus building accessible during university operating hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Renovated (2023) university performance hall with full accessibility; elevators and accessible seating.
Equipment
Photos OK
Stephen F. Austin State University Performing Arts · Named for Dean William M. Turner (1965-1978) · Micky Elliott College of Fine Arts (2023)
Stephen F. Austin State University established its theatre program in the mid-twentieth century, and the Griffith Fine Arts Building became the program's home. The auditorium within the building was named for William M. Turner, who served as dean of the College of Fine Arts from 1965 to 1978 and shaped the department through its most formative decades.
The building was vacated in spring 2020 to allow for demolition, renovation, and new construction. The project ran through 2022 with reopening for fall classes and performances in 2023. The renovation updated seating capacity, improved acoustics, and upgraded technical infrastructure. At the 2023 dedication, the institution was named the Micky Elliott College of Fine Arts.
The Chester legend predates the renovation by more than five decades. The ghost's first documented encounters occurred in the original building in 1967, and successive generations of faculty and students have carried the tradition through the building's operational history. Chester arrived with the 2023 reopening intact, according to theater faculty who shared accounts in university press materials.
Sources
Chester arrived in the fall of 1967 during director Kenneth Waters's production of Edward Albee's Tiny Alice. Faculty, students, and staff associated with the production reported a series of unexplained phenomena: cold air drafts appearing in a closed building, footsteps approaching across empty floors, doors rattling and opening by themselves, and a luminous face visible on the auditorium wall during rehearsals. Dr. Waters named the presence 'Chester.'
Faculty member Tomy Matthys photographed what he described as 'a vaporous image floating across the scene in the form of a human body wearing a cowled hood.' Matthys, who remained skeptical about the paranormal origin, submitted the negative to Kodak for analysis; the lab confirmed the negative had no defects that would explain the image. That photograph circulated among SFA theater faculty for decades and was cited in the university's own press coverage of Chester as recently as 2015.
Subsequent encounters ran through the following decades: nine glowing ghost heads appearing during a Macbeth production when eight were staged; unexplained lights during Winterset rehearsals; spotlights flashing without operators during Fiddler on the Roof props work; and, in the 1990s, a spotlight that illuminated Matthys for thirty minutes with the lighting board confirmed off. The SFA Sawdust student magazine documented Chester in a dedicated feature. Origin legends circulated among students — a dying architect, a construction worker killed in a fall — but the university's own accounts explicitly note that neither story is true, and that the one confirmed death associated with the building was the foreman, who died of a heart attack inside the structure during construction.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The W.M. Turner Auditorium hosts SFA theatre and dance productions throughout the academic year. The auditorium — named for Dean William M. Turner (1965-1978) and reopened in 2023 after a major renovation — is the primary venue for the Micky Elliott College of Fine Arts. The backstage catwalks, control booth, and wings where Chester's most-cited encounters occurred are not open to general visitors.
The Griffith Fine Arts Building exterior and the surrounding SFA campus are freely accessible. The building's history with Chester is part of SFA's informal campus folklore; the university's newsroom has published multiple accounts of the ghost.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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