One pro (or con, depending on who you ask) about attending RVC is its distinct lack of ghosts.
There are no ghouls haunting the Jacobs Center, no spirits in CLII, and, no, those students who seem to always be in the library are not, in fact, haunting it.
So where do you go if you have an itch to see the paranormal? Where’s the perfect place to hear those sweet disembodied voices? One possibility might be closer than you think. (And, no, it’s not the basement of the ERC)
Rockford University, formerly known as Rockford College, may be just the place to release your inner Zak Bagans. Three buildings and one monument are said to have the most paranormal activity, so I thought I’d go and check a couple of them out for myself.
The first scene I visited was the Clark Arts Center. This building, according to the website mysteriousheartland.com, is the most haunted building on campus. Home to the Maddox and Cheek theaters, the Clark Arts Center displays stunning artifacts from India and
Africa, along with beautiful ancient frescoes of figures in celebration. This beauty comes with a price, however – as many people have claimed to have feelings of “heaviness” around these artifacts. People have also claimed to have seen the faces of the fresco figures change expressions, and even follow people as they make their way to the theatres.
That’s not all – the two theatres contained in the Clark Arts Center have their own hauntings. In the Maddox Theatre, students have claimed to see lights flicker for no clear reason in the dressing rooms backstage. They’ve also claimed to hear a bell in the prop room chime on its own. The reason behind this? Apparently, there was an actress who was very sick, and tried to ring the bell to call for help. Nobody heard the bell, and she was found dead some days later. Creepy.
The Cheek Theatre is the smaller of the two, but that doesn’t make it any less haunted. Before performances in the theatre, people have claimed to see a shadowy figure roaming around the place.
I went to the Clark Arts Center, and roamed around for a bit. Though the artifacts made me feel a bit uneasy (perhaps that might’ve been because people were giving me odd looks), nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. The little cherubic faces on the frescos didn’t follow me or scowl at me. I didn’t see any shadowy figures. Really, it was kind of disappointing. Where else could I go to find out if Rockford University really was as haunted as people said it was?
Before I’d given up all hope, I checked out the second supposedly haunted site – the Adams Arch. The Adams Arch is actually the doorway to the old Adams Hall building, which was built in 1891. This building, according to The Council of Independent Colleges Historic Campus Architecture Project, housed science labs, recital rooms, and the art studio.
When Rockford University moved its campus from the banks of the Rock River to its current location, Adams Hall was torn down. However, the Arch was moved to the current location, where it was rebuilt in 1975.
Though the Adams Arch isn’t home to such phenomena as ghost bells and shadow people, it still holds its own unique spooks. Apparently, on some evenings, you can hear a faint girl’s laughter when standing near the arch.
I, disappointingly, didn’t hear any such laughter. I even took a short audio recording on my phone, to see if I could capture any faint giggles, but to no avail. I’m not sure if it was because the air wasn’t still enough, or it wasn’t quite dark enough outside yet, or what.
So, from what I experienced, I can’t tell you whether Rockford University is definitively haunted. Maybe you can go yourself, and see what you can capture.
Who knows, maybe you’ll see a shadowy figure, or hear a mysterious bell, or see the expression of a fresco change. As for me, I’ll stay here at ghost free RVC, where I can take in a play without worrying about any unwanted seat neighbors.
