A creepy clown lurks in the shadows as a part of the annual Haunted Fine Arts Center event.
Sara Novenstern/Castleton Spartan

Generally when you walk into the Fine Arts Center, you don’t hear blood-curdling shrieks coming from behind closed doors or witness students crying or hyperventilating, trying to catch their breath.

But the weekend of Oct. 25-26 was no ordinary weekend there.

The theater department once again hosted its annual haunted FAC tour as a prelude to Halloween. The tour featured costumed students jumping out at you from every corner, a disturbing clown, and true stories about the haunted Art House.  

“It is relatively terrifying for college students,” said sophomore Alexa Fryover.

It was apparently terrifying enough that freshman Abby Borthwick had a nightmare about the creepy clown, fell out of bed, and sprained her arm, according to friends.

And as always, the haunting of students focused a lot on the Woolridge House, dubbed the “art house,” behind the FAC.    

The house has a troubling, reportedly true ghost history behind it. What is currently used as studio space for art students, was formerly a daycare, orphanage or an old house with a family. However, all the stories you here claim the art house had a fire and children were killed, said junior Brittany Rathburn who was the tour guide.

But that’s not the whole story.

“About four to five years ago, the haunted FAC tour went through the art house and people would always comment on how scary it was, but how the scariest part that year was the little girl at the top of the stairs. There wasn’t a little girl stationed at the top of the stairs that night,” Rathburn said.

And it doesn’t end there.

“There is other evidence of the little girl living there too. Apparently, at one point they painted the floors in the art house and left it to dry and they found a child’s footprints and hand prints and when they painted it again the same thing happened,” Rathburn said.

Art professor Jonathan Scott, who has taught here for 25 years, said he’s heard that the Fine Arts Center is haunted, with odd things occasionally happening on stage, but he said he hasn’t heard of the little girl story in the Woolridge House.

“That sounds like a good story. I don’t have anything like that so go with that one,” he said.

Junior Chelsea Pine was one of many students that night who was more than a little scared by the event. Lying on the ground catching her breath she said, “I probably should have peed before … I am sweating in places I didn’t know I could sweat.”

Senior Cameron Scully was one of the guides for the tour that night and said he thought the event was very successful.