Gorman School – Gorman, CA

The Gorman School in Gorman, CA is said to be haunted. In the usual retelling, it was built on the site of a farm where a girl named Harriet lived and was accidentally crushed by her father’s tractor. She was buried on the property. Her body is said to rest under the stage in the school’s auditorium, where her ghost has appeared to a number of teachers, custodians, and students over the years. In the 1940’s, after a women’s club meeting in the auditorium, the child is said to have appeared to an elderly lady and warned her not to go out the front door. Ignoring what she thought was a hallucination, the woman walked out the door and slipped in freshly fallen snow. She broke her hip in two places.

What the record says

The earliest print mention found for this update is a Los Angeles Times article by Steve Padilla, published June 21, 1989. It profiled the Gorman School District, then the smallest in Los Angeles County with 49 pupils, and said students and teachers claimed a ghost haunted the halls. It described her as supposedly the spirit of a girl accidentally run over by a tractor driven by her father. Superintendent Wesley Thomas told the paper, “She was buried underneath what is now the stage.” Teachers and students said she opens and shuts doors and cupboards, and a reading specialist said “the piano plays.” The district secretary insisted, “It’s a good ghost, as long as you’re here for a good reason.”

That article does not name the girl, give her age, describe a farm or mention the story of the elderly woman in the snow. Those details appear in later retellings, such as a February 7, 2014 ghost blog post, which names the girl Harriet, places her family’s farm on the site in the early 1930s and tells the 1940s story. The blog cites no source for them, and no record of the girl or a burial was found for this update.

The school’s present building is documented, and it is from 1938. The 1989 article says it was built that year by the federal Works Progress Administration and that the first eighth-graders graduated the following spring. That is the date of the building, not of any haunting, and no source found dates the first sighting.

Where the school is

The California Department of Education’s school directory lists Gorman Elementary, in the Gorman Joint district in Los Angeles County, at 49847 Gorman School Rd., Gorman, CA 93243. It is an active public school serving preschool through eighth grade, so it is not a place to wander in uninvited. The 1989 article places the school 65 miles north of Los Angeles.

Sources

• Los Angeles Times: The Incredible Shrinking School: Historic Gorman Institution Is Tiny but It Boasts Its Own Ghost (June 21, 1989)
• California Department of Education: Gorman Elementary, School Directory Details
• Seeks Ghosts: Gorman School: Harriet’s Ghost (February 7, 2014)

FAQ

Who is Harriet?

The usual retelling says she was a girl who died on the farm that stood there before the school, and that she was buried on the property. The 1989 Los Angeles Times article, the earliest print mention found, says only that she was a girl accidentally run over by her father’s tractor and buried under what is now the stage. It gives no name or age.

Has the school been haunted since 1938?

No source found says so. The present building dates to 1938, but the earliest print mention of the ghost found is from 1989.

Is she a friendly ghost?

In 1989 the school’s district secretary insisted, “It’s a good ghost, as long as you’re here for a good reason.” In the best-known later story she warns a woman not to go out the front door. The woman ignored her, slipped on fresh snow and broke her hip.

Where is Gorman?

Gorman is in northwestern Los Angeles County, beside Interstate 5, about 65 miles north of Los Angeles according to a 1989 Los Angeles Times article. The California Department of Education lists the school at a Gorman address in Los Angeles County. The 1989 article mentions snowy winter days at the school.

More haunted schools in California

Read about Santa Barbara City College or Sacramento State.

Top image: Gorman Elementary School in Gorman, CA. Photo: George Garrigues, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized.