Campus of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas

Henderson State University – Arkadelphia, AR

Southeastern US Haunted Schools

According to the best-known version of the legend, when Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, AR was a Methodist college, a young man fell in love with a girl from Ouachita Baptist University. The two schools are close neighbors, described in one local account as sitting across the highway from each other. Friends of the boy convinced him that the relationship was fruitless because of the differing schools and religions, so he stopped seeing her. When the girl found out he was taking someone else to his homecoming dance she committed suicide. Now, every year during homecoming week, her shadowy form returns to the women’s dorms at Henderson State, searching for the girl who won her only love. Students call her the Lady in Black.

Water tower in Arkadelphia, Arkansas
Historic photo of the old Clark County Courthouse in Arkadelphia, Arkansas

Another version, and what the record says

A November 1, 2021 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story by Tyler Wann quotes university historian David Sesser with the roles reversed. In his telling, a Henderson girl was dating an older Ouachita boy, who left her for a new freshman, and she plunged to her death from what is now DeSoto Bluff. Sesser said she returns to the women’s dorms at Halloween or during the week of the Battle of the Ravine, the annual Henderson and Ouachita football game, looking for the freshman who took her boyfriend. He dated the first regular sightings to around 1929, when Henderson became a state institution, and said every freshman hears about her at the annual “Pine Tree Speech.”

The same article records doubt. Sesser said research had been done to see whether a Henderson student ever took her own life at DeSoto Bluff, and nothing had been found. Housing director Nikki Laird said students tell her they believe the ghost lives on the eighth floor of Smith Hall, but no real evidence has come about, and she has not witnessed anything herself. The legend stays a legend.

The Nell Page robe tradition

Sesser told the Democrat-Gazette the legend most likely grew from a student named Nell Page, who attended around 1910, when the school was still a Methodist college. The night before a football game with Ouachita, he said, she walked the dorm halls in a white robe to predict a loss or a black robe to predict a win. Only women lived on campus then, which may explain why the ghost is said to haunt only women’s dorms. Sesser said Page died young, of tuberculosis at about 27, and did not take her own life. The article does not say how the robe tradition became a ghost story, so that link is his theory.

Ouachita’s mirror-image story

Across the highway, Ouachita Baptist University tells it the other way round. A post on the university’s student blog by McKenzie Wells (’17) places the story in the late 1920s. A Ouachita girl named Jane falls for a Henderson boy named Joshua, he drops her on homecoming day to take a Henderson girl to the dance, and Jane puts on a black dress and veil and throws herself down the elevator shaft of Cone-Bottoms Hall. Her ghost is said to moan in the halls there and, on Henderson’s homecoming night, to search Henderson’s campus for the one who took her love. The blog calls it a legend and offers no record of a death.

Which buildings were there?

The dorms named as haunts today are younger than the legend. Womack Hall was built in 1937 as a dormitory, according to a 2011 Magnolia Reporter article, and was later converted to administration offices. Henderson says Smith Hall has been a residence hall since its completion in 1965. Henderson’s page now describes Smith Hall as open to all students. Even the 1929 date for the first sightings comes before either building was finished, so the ghost cannot have started in them.

Sources

FAQ

When does the Lady in Black appear?

The best-known version says she returns every year during homecoming week. The Democrat-Gazette version says Halloween or the week of the Battle of the Ravine, which makes her one of the few campus ghosts with a calendar.

Why the rivalry?

Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist are close neighbors in Arkadelphia with a long-running rivalry, and every version of the legend is built on it.

Did a student really die?

No record has been found. University historian David Sesser told the Democrat-Gazette that research had found no sign of a Henderson student taking her own life at DeSoto Bluff. He said the student most likely behind the story, Nell Page, died of tuberculosis.

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Top image: Campus of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, AR. Photo: Brandonrush, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons