Ghosts of Edson Hall

“CBS Sunday Morning” was in full swing for Halloween on Oct. 25, running a segment on ghost building signs. Ghost signs are found on the sides of old brick buildings where the business names were painted on the exterior walls. The paint in most cases is faded and sometimes more than one business name is evident.

Buena Vista University also has a ghost building, but its ghostly exterior is not on its walls. It’s higher up and only visible when the weather turns frosty.

As if by magic, on certain cold days, Edson Hall, BV’s oldest extant building, yields its secret. Just above the eastern and western rooflines, one can observe evenly spaced dark rectangles on both sides of the roof. They line up perfectly with the windows on each side of the building, which adds to the mystery.

Any builder or contractor can likely suss out the reason. The dark patches on the icy roof are the remnants of dormers that once poked out of the old building’s attic.

Built in 1920, Edson Hall was originally named Victory Hall to honor WWI veterans. It was built as the school’s first gymnasium and also sported a running track on the second story. Only 22 turns around the track equaled a mile.

There was also a stage and dressing room for plays, and the National Guard had a dedicated space in the building.

Following the end of WWII, the U.S. government made funds available for veterans to receive a college education or vocational training. BV was flooded with young men taking advantage of the government’s GI Bill.

In 1946, the school newspaper reported that the basement was to be remodeled into 50 rooms for summer school students.

Later that year, dormers were added to the attic to house 66 additional male students. You could say that students were literally coming out of the rafters, although the 1948 yearbook reported that only 44 male students “clambered up past the rafters of the gym” into 11 large rooms.

There’s no official report when the dormers were removed, but by 1956, White Hall, the first men’s dorm was built, obviating the need for attic living in Edson Hall.

It just goes to show, I guess, that you can take the dormer out of the roof, but on a brisk day, the spooky legacy lives on.

Joan Zwagerman writes from Storm Lake.