CJ Day- Staff Writer
“The minute I first stepped into the building, I knew there was some sort of entity here,” said Frieda Knobloch, Director of American Studies. “I just said to him that this was my office now, and that if he stayed out, we wouldn’t have any problems. And he’s stayed out.”
The Cooper House, standing on the corner of 15th Street and Grand Avenue and home to the American Studies department, is one of the only buildings used by the university that the university did not build; rather, they bought it from its previous owners. There is one wrinkle, though – it seems the previous owners never left.
The Cooper House has developed a reputation for paranormal activity ever since it was acquired by the university in 1980. Those who have worked in the building said they have experienced many different unexplainable events; including spectral footsteps, doors opening and closing on their own and lights flickering on and off unprompted.
“We’ve had a real problem with the printers,” said Sophia Beck, who works on the first floor of the Cooper House. “Sometimes they’ll start printing things when you don’t ask [the printer] to and when you check to see what was printed, it’ll have printed nonsense, just a bunch of random letters.”
Events like these make it hard for people in the building to blame the weird phenomena on drafts or faulty wiring. A far more likely explanation, said Beck, is the ghost of Richard Cooper, who built the house with his sister Barbara in 1921.
Faculty and students have reported seeing a well-dressed man in a top hat watching them during classes in the building, which lines up with how Cooper looked in life. In addition, a medium said they had made contact with Cooper during a ghost hunt recently.
“I think Richard just wants to make sure that the place is respected,” said Beck. “It was his home for many years, and that’s not going to change.”
Many in the house report smelling peppermint tobacco during times of heightened paranormal activity. Beck said she theorizes it as a sign that Cooper disapproves of what is happening in the house. The last time she smelled peppermint tobacco was right before a meeting with university administration to determine whether the Cooper House would be demolished. In the days leading up to the meeting, the smell of peppermint tobacco, one of Cooper’s favorite vices, permeated the house. When Cooper House was saved from the wrecking ball, the smell went away.
The house also cannot seem to keep custodians; Beck said two custodians fled the Cooper House during overnight cleaning, never to return. Students and faculty are also apprehensive about working in the house alone at night and dogs refuse to go up to the second floor, a theorized epicenter of the haunting. A student who said they were psychically gifted refused to go up the main staircase to the second floor; she said she used the fire escape to get up. Despite all this, faculty who work on the second floor seem to have a working agreement with the ghost.
While Knobloch said she still witnessed paranormal events in the house such as a black smoke in the basement and hearing footsteps when there was no one else there – she does not feel the entity is malicious. Beck said she does not think so either.
“I don’t think that whatever’s here is evil, or out to get us,” she said. “I think Mr. Cooper is just interested in what’s going on here, and wants to make sure we’re treating his house with respect.”
