Lincoln Hall - University of Nevada, Reno
N 39° 32.363 W 119° 48.978
11S E 257975 N 4380423
Located in the heart of the University of Nevada, Reno campus sits Lincoln Hall, an all-male residence hall, and has supposedly been haunted by the ghost of a former student who accidentally shot himself dead in this building in 1906.
Waymark Code: WMJY0T
Location: Nevada, United States
Date Posted: 01/14/2014
Views: 4
Located in the heart of the University of Nevada, Reno campus sits Lincoln Hall, an all-male residence hall. Built in 1896, this residence hall is the oldest continuously operating residence hall in the western United States. In addition to this superlative status is a ghost story that has haunted this building, named after Abraham Lincoln, since 1906. A few local websites have highlighted the 'ghost of Jimmy' and one particular
story is taken from the
Reno Gazette Journal and reads:
Since Lincoln Hall opened at the University of Nevada in January 1896, the dormitory residents have reported eerie sensations, mostly in the rooms on the second floor.
Some attribute the weird feelings to the spirits from the hillside graveyard, located across North Virginia Street when the "boys" residence hall was built.
Others believe the strange phenomena are created by the ghost of James Champagne, who died in the dorm under questionable circumstances in 1906.
Mechanical engineering student James "Foxy" Champagne died of a gunshot wound. The dorm residents heard a pistol discharge about 9:30 p.m. Louis Goldstein and others rushed into Champagne's room and found him lying on the floor with a gun by his side, bleeding from a bullet wound. Physicians were called, but he died within the hour.
The corner's inquest found that Champagne died accidentally at his own hand. Some of the students questioned the decision and believed he committed suicide. Those present at his death testified that his last words were, "It was the old pistol that did it."
Dick Brown, the first headmaster of the dormitory, stated Champagne's last words were, "I was monkeying with the old pistol, and it went off. It was accidental, Prof."
Housemates recalled Foxy reading a letter and tossing it in the sandstone fireplace in the reading room moments before the shot rang out.
He handed his roommate Bob Sawyer two letters to mail before he entered the reading room. William Champagne received one of the letters and testified that his brother did not mention anything that would indicate he would take his life.
Other haunts in Lincoln Hall have been sighted. In 1907, the Student Record reported a frightened scholar with his flaxen hair standing straight from his head staring out his dorm window at the cemetery. He claimed he chased a ghost across the campus, but his fellow students attributed the story to his imagination.
One night in 1950, two petrified female students described a dim, gray form they saw in an upstairs curtained window. The next day they strolled past Lincoln Hall and discovered the double-hung window did not have curtains.
In the 1970s, Lincoln Hall President Eric Lane said he had communicated via an ouija board with a specter named John. This story renewed remembrance of another death in the 1960s, when a resident swallowed a cyanide mixture. His friends stated he showed no signs of despondency before his death.
Room 220 is the place of strange happenings, such as the door blowing open for no reason. When Dennis Felts lived in the room, the television suddenly turned on in the middle of the night. Things appeared in the room without explanation. Felts said that the ghost named Jeff was the spirit of a 3-year-old boy from Germany.
Felts gave Reno Evening Gazette reporter John Read a tour of the residence hall, pointing out the secret places where he believed that the spirits hid, including in the weathervane.
Whoever the shadowy residents are they create spooky feelings, include unexplainable chill winds blowing up the stairwell, cold areas that raise goose bumps on residents' arms in an otherwise warm room and terrifying moans, sobs and muffled muttering.
Aside from the pale gliding forms, Lincoln Hall has a celebrated history without its ghosts. The Board of Regents hired the illustrious San Francisco architect firm of Percy and Hamilton to design the residence hall named in honor of President Abraham Lincoln.
The firm adopted features of the Richardson-Romanesque style that was popular during the era. Many 19th-century federal buildings were constructed in this design using stones and red bricks featuring semicircular arches. The result gave a heavy, massive appearance to the building housing 95 male students, two to a room.
The design also included a cupola and weathervane and Flemish gables along the roof line of the wings of the building. The two-story H-shaped building constructed with bricks and sandstones has dormer windows peeking out of the north and south sides of the attic roof. The distinct features of the dormitory are the granite entrance arch over the main entrance and arched porch. Stately Lincoln Hall is the oldest residence hall on campus and the only dorm famous for its shadowy residents. Some believe that the apparitions floating around the dormitory are mere college pranks.
There is also another article from the UNR's Insight Magazine here that mentions the ghost of Jimmy and reads:
The current students entertain themselves with stories about the dorms past. The most famous example is the story of Jimmy. Jimmy was a student who lived in Lincoln Hall during 1906 and died from an accident while cleaning his gun, which caused it to fire. He died of the wound and has apparently haunted Lincoln Hall ever since. Students often blame him for locking themselves out of their room, unexplained noises in the hall and other random stories. According to some of the students, his true residence is in the storage room of the basement. After a few visits there, that is understandable. It is a rather poorly lit area with plenty of old artifacts. It does seem there is a feeling of something is in there, rather it is a ghost or just the psychological feeling of historical presence gathered from all of the old objects.
There is something else that lurks in the hall daily. It probably isn’t it a ghost but just the same feeling of the building’s age. It is as if the building has eyes, always watching you and the other students as they come, experience the college life, and leave for their adult lives. With no plans of destroying the original building and creating a new one, it appears as those theoretical eyes will remain and keep watch as more years come and go.
You decide if the ghost of Jimmy is haunting Lincoln Hall. The students hold an annual haunted house in the basement every October leading up to Halloween. If you're in Reno during this time and want to check it out, there's a Facebook page devoted to it titled
Lincoln Haunted Basement and can be visited
here.