Haunted Sinclair College: Building 2 (Blair Hall)

Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio has quite a reputation. Oh sure, it is well known for academics, and has recently received coverage in the New York Times for coursework designed to help retrain workers caught in the economic peril of layoffs. However, another facet of Sinclair College is its well known and documented reputation for being a hotbed of paranormal activity.

Our preliminary research seemed to point to two buildings: Number 13 and Number 2 seemed to have the most references to paranormal, ghostly reports. The College website itself acknowledges the stories. It poses the question: Is Sinclair Community College haunted? Answer given: It depends on whether you believe in ghosts or not. There are stories about ghosts in Building 7, Building 2, and Building 13. More information is available in the Archives. (Followed by contact name and phone).

Our visit to the Sinclair campus took place on a beautiful sunny day in the final week of August. The 3rd Street Exit off I-75 will drop you conveniently on the north side of the campus. Map in hand, we were ready to look for the infamous Building #2, Blair Hall. Well, even though the architecture of each building is primarily the same, finding a particular building is not a problem. Rather huge numbers are prominently displayed on each! But I digress from our paranormal search….

Always wanting to garner firsthand accounts, I eagerly approached a student, asking him if he had heard the stories of ghostly activity at his college of choice. Well, I suppose that young man, who turned out to be a brand new freshman looking for the book store, may still be wondering about that crazy ghost talking couple who asked him for information.

The next person I asked (this time an adult) almost too quickly responded that yes, he had heard a story or two, but gave them no credence at all. This said over his shoulder as he hurried to cross the street. He sure didn’t want to provide any information in a way that would lend any credence to our inquiry.

We did finally find a professor who was most gracious in sharing his encounters with Mr. Joshua, the ghost of Building #13. Our record of his narrative is given in another post here.We found ourselves in front of Building #2, known formally as Blair Hall, the campus auditorium. Several versions of paranormal activity have been reported here, mostly after a production and during cleanup.

Reports have included doors slamming shut, people feeling something brushing by them, with nothing there, unknown cause of pressure felt on one’s chest, and cold drafts. One report claims the revolving door unlocked itself and began to rotate on its own long after the building was closed for the night.

We spent a bit of time in the lobby, but the auditorium itself was locked. Fortunately no one came into or through the lobby, thus we were able to ‘get a feel’ of the surrounds. After climbing the spiral stair to the balcony access, I tried the upstairs door, also locked. The door was more than locked, meaning as I tried the handle, I felt the sensation of “NO DO NOT COME IN”. Ok by me. Then the curtain I had moved to get access to the door felt twice as dense and heavy going back out. That gave me pause….

When I returned down the stairs, my wife was standing next to one of the downstairs entrances to the auditorium, between the wall and a table. The look on her face told me that she had sensed something even before she summoned me to her location. I stood where she had just been. Definite drop in temperature, almost unnoticeable cool wispy breeze, and she immediately observed that a very few hairs on my head were standing erect. I felt the hair on my arms rising as well.

As far as the ‘wispy’ breeze, I looked the whole lobby over for a mechanical source of what we both felt, to no avail. The only air vents were flush to the floor next to the front windows, with very little output. In addition, ceiling suspended show billings were not moving at all. I had felt a presence on the second level, and we both felt the presence on the first level. It was not pleasant.

Once we left the Blair Hall building, we preceded north, then back east towards our vehicle. As we rounded the NW corner of Building Number 2, the picture below greeted us. To me this stark, yet busy architecture for some reason really bothered me. Nothing in particular, just a bad feeling, and I was glad to get back to our vehicle.

Is Sinclair College haunted? We certainly had encounters of some nature. We have received firsthand paranormal accounts from a long-time professor. And those who I talked with that claimed there was nothing to the stories were a bit too quick to deny even the widespread nature of said tales. Perhaps one of the most telling statements comes from a story in the Dayton Daily News published October 20, 2008.

When asked by the reporter about the haunted nature of the Campus, Gary Honnert, then director of public relations for the college stated “We’ve heard this before. It’s not something we actively promote because how do you prove something like that?” Honnert himself related tales of both Blair Hall and Building 13, and then was quoted again: “Is there anybody standing around here that has actually seen ghosts? No. The reports are vague enough to be true but not specific enough to be certain.”