Old Ellerbe Road School

Originally built in 1957 as George Washington Carver High School, this structure has sat abandoned since 1985. The deteriorating building has become a magnet for urban legends and paranormal investigators.

The Old Ellerbe Road School opened in 1957 as George Washington Carver High School, a segregated campus serving Black students of all grades in southeast Caddo Parish, Louisiana. The school, whose mascot was the Hornet and whose colors were white and green, was considered state-of-the-art when it opened but consistently struggled with a low population base. It closed its doors in 1973 after just sixteen years of operation. The property briefly found new life in 1981 when Baptist Tabernacle leased it for use as a campus of Baptist Christian College, but that venture also failed by 1985, citing low attendance and high upkeep costs. The school has stood abandoned ever since, deteriorating into one of Shreveport's most infamous locations.

The legends that grew around the abandoned school are dark and elaborate, though historians have found no evidence to support them. The most persistent story claims that a janitor named Quinton Gimple abducted and molested several students before locking them in the gymnasium and setting the building on fire, leaving the children to burn alive before disappearing himself. Another version holds that multiple students vanished without a trace along with the janitor, prompting terrified parents to shut down the school. Dr. Cheryl White, a historian at Louisiana State University Shreveport, investigated these claims along with a former Carver High student and found no newspaper records confirming any fatal fire or missing children. As White noted, a crime of that magnitude is something that not only would have made the papers but would have been imprinted on our consciousness in this town. The evidence suggests the children Gimple allegedly kidnapped never existed.

What did happen at the abandoned school after its closure is disturbing in its own right. Teenagers began gathering in the vacant building, covering the walls with graffiti of pentagrams, heavy metal song lyrics, and references to Satan. The school earned the nickname Satan School. Police and investigators discovered evidence of what appeared to be genuine occult activity, including a sacrificed wild boar left in front of the building and inverted pentagrams painted throughout the interior and exterior. Dr. White documented indicators of wiccan, pagan, and satanic rituals, though she expressed uncertainty about whether these represented genuine practitioners or teenagers engaging in elaborate pranks. A life-size mural depicting the Grim Reaper was painted on one of the interior walls.

Despite the debunked origin stories, visitors who have entered the crumbling building report genuine experiences they cannot explain. Groups of teenagers exploring the property have described hearing a school bell ringing through the empty halls, muffled cries as if from children calling for help, and doors slamming shut on their own. Others report moving shadows in the windows, intense cold spots in certain rooms, and the persistent sensation of being watched. The charred bleachers still visible in the gymnasium fuel the fire legend, whether they were burned during the abandonment years or through some other cause. The building has since been demolished, but the property, still owned by the Caddo Parish School Board, continues to draw curiosity seekers and paranormal enthusiasts who report that something unsettling lingers on the grounds where the school once stood.