Rear of Owen Hall at Indiana University Bloomington, a red-brick 1884 building with slate roofs and chimneys

Indiana University Bloomington – Bloomington, IN: The 1911 Woman in Black, Owen Hall and the Ghost Walk

Midwestern US Haunted Schools

Indiana University Bloomington has one of the better-documented ghost traditions in the Midwest. A folklore department has run an annual Ghost Walk since 2001, and the campus’s best-known apparition, the Woman in Black, goes back to a student newspaper story from October 1911. Around her sit tales of a haunted painting, a cemetery in the middle of campus, a dormitory prank and a stage floor that is said to bleed. This guide separates what the record shows from what is only legend.

What the record says

The earliest story located ran in the Indiana Daily Student. As quoted by the paper in a 2024 feature, its October 9, 1911 issue carried the headline “Woman in Black Roams and Scares Students.” Several students reported a veiled figure in black, and one, Noble Barr, ran to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house. A week later the paper said rocks had been thrown at students “by some unknown person” and that students blamed the Woman in Black. The 1911 issues themselves were not read for this guide.

The Ghost Walk is documented too. IU Libraries says the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology event began in 2001, and the papers of folklorist Linda Dégh (1918 to 2014) include a flyer from the second walk. Dégh collected ghost stories from 90 of Indiana’s 92 counties. In 2025 the college reported that the student Folklore and Ethnomusicology Student Association was running the 14th year of its Ghost Walk, with stops that include Owen Hall, the Indiana Memorial Union, Dunn Cemetery and Read Hall.

The buildings are real and dated. IU Archives says Wylie and Owen Halls, both 1884, were the first two buildings on the current campus, and the IU chronology records a men’s gymnasium in Owen Hall by 1891. Construction of the IU Auditorium began in 1938, and it opened on March 22, 1941. Dunn Cemetery, beside the Memorial Union, was legally set aside as a family burial ground in 1855, according to My IU, and it is still an active cemetery.

The legends

The Woman in Black. The retelling is a veiled woman who follows people out after dark along Third Street. She ducks behind a tree and is gone when someone looks again. The 2020 student retelling also floats a simpler idea: a burglar working the fraternity houses.

Dunn Cemetery’s lady in black. A 2026 Indiana Daily Student guide says a lady in black is sometimes seen in the cemetery and is believed to be Agnes Dunn, a family member who tended soldiers in the Civil War.

Owen Hall’s arm. On the Ghost Walk, Owen Hall is the setting for a story about medical school cadavers moved by dumbwaiter and a prank with a severed arm that ends in a gross-out punchline.

The Tudor Room painting. IU Libraries says O.O. Haig’s painting “Halloween,” which hangs in the Memorial Union’s Tudor Room, is blamed for disturbing tables and flowers that staff set the night before.

Elsewhere in the Union. The Ghost Walk typically opens with sightings of the spirit of folklorist Richard Dorson. In 2025 the Walk’s student president described an elevator that stops on the fourth floor for no reason, a report he says has long come from students, faculty and hotel guests.

What the record does not support

  • That the Woman in Black has haunted campus “since the early ’90s.” The 2024 feature says so, but the 1911 reports and the 2001 Ghost Walk are older. As quoted, the 1911 articles describe someone prowling and throwing rocks, and when the ghost label began was not established.
  • Agnes Dunn as a Civil War nurse. IU’s own cemetery pages, My IU and Unique IU, do not mention her. Unique IU names an Agnes Alexander, one of three sisters tied to a Revolutionary War story, so the two may have been mixed together.
  • Cadavers in Owen Hall. No record was found. The chronology documents a gymnasium there.
  • A worker’s fatal fall at the Auditorium. The 2026 guide tells it as a legend, with blood stains that reappear at tragic moments. The Auditorium’s history page and the other sources here mention no such death, and none was found.
  • Named victims in dormitory tales. IU News described a Read Hall woman in a yellow dress and a McNutt Quad hatchet story as legends in 2020, with no victim named or dated. IU News, citing folklore librarian Moira Marsh, said such legends offer “a safe way to discuss the serious topic of death.”

Visiting

The Ghost Walk runs each October, hosted by the student folklore association. The 2026 campus guide put the cost at around $3 and said details are posted on the department’s website. This year’s dates were not confirmed, so check before you go. Dunn Cemetery lies between the Memorial Union and Beck Chapel. It holds family graves, so walk through quietly. The Memorial Union and IU Auditorium are public buildings, and Owen Hall can be seen from outside, though access to its interior was not confirmed. For a way to run your own tour, see How to Run a Campus Ghost Walk This Halloween.

FAQ

Is the Woman in Black real?

The 1911 student newspaper reports are real. They describe a veiled figure and thrown rocks. The ghost is campus folklore.

When did the IU Ghost Walk start?

IU Libraries dates it to 2001, run by the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. A student group runs it today.

Did someone die building the IU Auditorium?

The story is told on campus, but no record of a death was found.

More haunted schools in the Midwest

Read about DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Across the border in Illinois, see Eastern Illinois University, Millikin University, Lourdes High School and Lewis and Clark Community College.

Sources

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Top image: Rear of Owen Hall at Indiana University Bloomington, built in 1884, photographed December 3, 2010. Photo: Nyttend, public domain, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons