Caraway Hall - Arkansas Tech

This dormitory on the Arkansas Tech University campus in Russellville has been a source of student ghost stories for decades.

Caraway Hall is a residence hall at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, a campus founded in 1909 as the Second District Agricultural School and designated a state college in 1925. The dormitory is named for Hattie Caraway, who in 1932 became the first woman elected to the United States Senate, representing Arkansas. The building sits in the heart of the campus, and its haunted reputation is among the most widely discussed at any Arkansas university.

Two competing legends attempt to explain the paranormal activity. The first holds that Caraway Hall was built on top of an old Cherokee burial site, and that the Native American mounds were disturbed during the groundwork for the foundation. The second and more specific legend involves a female student who reportedly committed suicide in the building. According to the account passed down through generations of Arkansas Tech students, the young woman — troubled by family problems or a relationship gone wrong — hanged herself from a second-floor window so that her body would be visible to everyone entering the building the following morning. The window in question, positioned in the center of the second floor, was subsequently bricked over, and it remains sealed to this day — a visible architectural anomaly that lends physical weight to the story, whether or not the underlying event can be verified.

Students living in Caraway Hall have reported a consistent pattern of unexplained phenomena over the years. Footsteps are heard on the stairs at all hours of the night, moving up and down when no one is visible on the stairwell. Sounds emanate from the attic even though no one has access to the space above the top floor. Whispers drift through the hallways and stop abruptly the moment someone rounds the corner, as though a conversation were being held just out of sight. Door handles rattle and turn on their own, and persistent knocking comes from doors when no one is standing on the other side. Several residents have described hearing a sequence that progresses from music to crying to screaming — an escalating pattern of sounds that seems to follow a narrative of its own.

In certain rooms, residents have reported the unmistakable sensation of being watched while they sleep, a presence that stands in the darkness near the bed or in the corner of the room. Some students have refused to remain in their assigned rooms after repeated encounters, requesting transfers to other dormitories. Scratching sounds have been heard coming from bathroom doors, and upon inspection, physical scratch marks have been found on the surfaces. Banging sounds from above continue even when students confirm they are on the building's top floor, with nothing overhead but the sealed attic space.

The university does not officially acknowledge the hauntings, but the stories are a persistent part of Arkansas Tech campus culture, passed from senior students to freshmen each fall. Caraway Hall continues to operate as a residence hall, and its bricked-over window remains the building's most conspicuous reminder that something happened here that the university would prefer to leave sealed.