| Ghosts & Haunts In Missouri Springfield Central Highschool Stories page 2 I lived caddy corner across from central high school in Springfield. across the street is a catholic Latin mass church with a 150 year old basement library also with cave access. While living in the home i discovered it was the first on that street and the first post master of Springfield's home. I did research and found photos of him in 1904 allowing a black man to wear a postal employees uniform this was against policy at the time. this made me wonder about the underground railroad etc. So we checked are basement and the two access points sealed up to the caves one heading toward the church one toward what is now the city hall (formerly the post office). intrigued I searched for more to no avail till one afternoon while mowing the lawn I noticed a moving curtain in the upstairs no one else was home so i went up there... nothing. continued mowing and again saw movement but this time I saw a black girl young looking at me. Freaked about the situation i spoke with roommates the one sharing the top floor said he had heard strange noises and I had too previously but he had also had an experience seeing a black girl in the stairwell. A month passed and we discovered the last family had suddenly left without notifying neighbors with whom they were close to. Then in June 05 I found it. The pantry had a hollow wall I tore out to discover old stairs leading to an old room. Sealed off the room and the design of the house seemed to try to conceal this room. Inside were old knitted blankets laid out like a bed and a poorly made tin plate both of which were kept. I moved 2 months later.. D B Hello, I was the guest that posted the origional information about the hauntings at Central Highschool. This picture was taken in 1909 after Central went through its first expantion. The expantion is the part of the building to the right. The signature on the bottom left of the photo reads DuNcan photo 1909. I aquired this photo while attending high school at Central. I did a school project on the history of the building and its history. The photo was origionaly published in a year book for Central Looking at the photo, the the building sits with the main front entrance facing south. The entrance to the cave would be located, looking at the building just to the left of the new addition their is a small set of steps that lead to two windows, the cave entrance would be in the basement just below those two windows. With in a few years the building went through another expantion, an almost duplicate of the main structure was built on the far east side(extending from the new addition added in 1909) The tower you see in the center of the main structure was struck by lightning and calapsed. When the second addition was added it too had a tower, but after the origional one calapsed the second one was removed. Part of the origional auditorium was also damaged, so repairs were made and it was converted to class room space. And once again in the 1930's the building was added to again. This addition was to be the new auditorium, and lunch room. It would stand connecting to the first addition and extending south. Since then Central has gone through many expansions and revaping. In late 1998, central began to tear down, and rebuild central to make it "larger" to accomadate the growing student population, and to modernize the older parts of the building. However, despite all these changes the origional steps leading to the main entrance have remained intact. I hope that this peaks someones interest, or gives a reason for someone to add to it. Thanks JN Page Back |
