by Taea Seigler
With over 100 years of history behind its walls, Founder’s Hall is bound to carry the stories, secrets and perhaps even the spirits of students, staff and faculty that have roamed its halls throughout the decades. Rumors of supernatural activity have spread amongst students and alumni, both through the grapevine and online.
One user of the Cal Poly Humboldt Reddit thread by the username Vivid_Ranger_2915, shared their paranormal encounter in the basement of Founder’s Hall one night in the late 2010s.
“We could hear the seismograph ticks from the hallway. We heard a sound from the hallway but due to the tall lab desks couldn’t hear [where] the scurrying noises came from,” user Vivid_Ranger_2915 said. “We got up, looked around and it was a black cat! There was no collar, and the cat proceeded to hop up on one of the tall lab chairs and hang out with us well into the evening and take a nap. For the day, that cat was our mascot. We made sure to bring it back outside and it was never seen again.”
Humboldt State University alumni Robyn Friedman O’Leary, who graduated with an English degree in 1989, also shared her experience with Founders Hall during her time here. She recalled hearing about strange noises within those halls heard by her fellow classmates who studied late into the evening, usually on stormy nights.
“There were always rumours of things that went bump in the dark there,” O’Leary said. “It is such an old building with such a storied history that I don’t think anyone would be surprised by stories of hauntings or paranormal experiences there.” During her time as a student, O’Leary had the opportunity to spend time in the now closed-off section of the building, Kerr Tower. The topmost part of Founder’s Hall, rounded with windows, was refurbished for student use in 1971 thanks to an $8,000 donation from Maple Creek residents, the Kerr family. According to a 1972 HSU press release, Kerr Tower was created “…to provide a place on campus where students could contemplate, meditate, think and pray in an atmosphere of peace and seclusion.”
Like many students who had once visited Kerr Tower, O’Leary described the room as warm, cozy, quiet and more than anything, peaceful.
The tower has since been quietly closed for no publicly available reason, leaving students to speculate why that might’ve been.
To this day, Kerr Tower remains empty and unused, but if you go into the courtyard of Founder’s Hall at night and catch it at the right angle, you’d find there is a light up there that remains on to this day, and a curtain that sways slowly back and forth, concealing whatever secrets may hide behind those windows.