Sinclair’s haunted past comes back to life

Halloween is catching up quickly. As we round the corner into the season of haunt and horror, it may be worth knowing what supernatural things linger in the very place that we come to learn.

Sinclair College has a rich and long history within Dayton, but with such a long existence comes a darker, frightful underbelly that most people are unaware of or purposefully forget.

Throughout the decades, various strange sightings and inexplicable occurrences have been told and retold, until eventually becoming Sinclair’s very own urban legends. Some claim these ghost sightings are nothing more than conjecture and tall tales, but others that have had first hand experience with these entities do not fall in line with the skeptics.

**Sinclair College Building 2 Dayton Campus.** THE CLARION

In a pervious interview with the Clarion, Chris Woodyard, author of the “Haunted Ohio” series spoke of elevators that move on their own, doors slamming with nobody around, voices coming from empty rooms and ghostly apparitions dancing on an empty stage.

The prominent spots to catch something paranormal at Sinclair is in the Blair Hall Theater, Building 7 or Building 13.

In Blair Hall Theater, located in Building 2, legends of a benevolent spirit playing with lone students echo through the halls. The Theater Department has lovingly named this spirit Hamlet.

**The Tartan Marketplace is a building many students go to to grab a snack or relax between classes.** SINCLAIR COLLEGE

Reports of feeling a presence, seeing shadows looming over lightboards and hearing footsteps clack along the hollow stage are all common happenings when working alone in the theater.

In Building 7, the tone shifts to something more sinister. Instead of a lighthearted presence and occasional footstep, closed doors slam and rattle, hushed voices whisper from empty rooms and lights flickering on and off at random.

Building 7 houses the most malicious spirits at Sinclair because it was built directly on top of Dayton’s old gallows. Criminals ranging from robbers to murderers were sentenced to death and hung right where the Tartan Marketplace now sits.

**Sinclair College Dayton Campus Building 13.** THE CLARION

People also report hearing cats’ meowing throughout the hallways. This has an uncanny tie in to the urban legend of a construction worker who worked on Sinclair’s construction and hated cats. When he could get his hands on one, he would kill it and throw it in the wet concrete, burying the cat within the walls of Sinclair.

In Building 13, a victim of the 1913 flood now roams the empty corridors, a ghost they have monikered Joshua. Security guards have reported seeing a tall, older man dressed in overalls. Once, they called the Dayton Police and chased the suspected intruder through the hallways before seeing him disappear through a wall.

**Concert in Blair Hall Theatre at Sinclair College.** THE CLARION

Joshua got his name after a lab technician printed a paper out and instead of his document, the only thing that would print was a paper with the name “JOSHUA” bolded in all caps.

Other speculators say Joshua was a worker at Building 13 when it was still a printing press and had his arm torn off by a machine.

This Halloween, as the veil between the physical and spirit world blends, pay reverence to the spirits that linger in the very halls we walk down.

Information in this article was sourced from an earlier Clarion post.

Noah Schlarman, executive editor

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