The university that is in town was originally built as a school for mediums and research into the paranormal. I have been told that all possible ways to leave town require going over running water, and that the cemeteries form a five-pointed star when looked at from above. There is a hill behind the student dorms that is supposed to be where a coven of witches (evil ones, of course) meet. Also, an apartment building was once the residence of a guy who fancied himself a master of the black arts, and is haunted.
Whitewater has been referred to as the "Second Salem.” I can attest that some areas of town just really give me the creeps. The problem is this, there is reputed to be documentation of one kind of another telling about the weird things in town. However, the town council has made sure that none of that exists in town anymore. I have even been told that someone wrote a book on the town and all of the freaky things that have happened. Has anyone else heard of these things? Can anyone direct me to where I can find out more?
–Jeff Woosley
We were intrigued when we received Jeff’s letter about his highly haunted town. We managed to track down an article from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s newspaper, the Royal Purple, that detailed some of the more famous legends surrounding the school and the town. The intriguing contents of this article are paraphrased below:
The Morris Pratt institute once stood in Whitewater, and was the first school to ever be built whose focus was communicating with the spirit world and other related topics. Large crowds would gather on Sunday nights, when raucous public seances would be held outside of the Pratt Institute. The school moved out of Whitewater in 1946, but its legends remain part of the town’s folklore.
There are some other true, but very strange, stories regarding Whitewater. On Halloween in 1970, the community was shocked to find that the open grave of a young girl had been hijacked from a local graveyard and placed on the mall of the University’s campus. Two fishermen had seen strange lights floating around one of the cemeteries (which form a perfect isosceles triangle, not a five pointed star) the previous night.
It is well known that there are a series of underground tunnels that form an intricate maze below Whitewater. It is believed that they were used as part of the Underground Railroad. Others say the tunnels have a much darker purpose, and are actually used by witches, who can travel safely within them without exposing their use of the black arts.
Speaking of witches, there are two spots on campus that have been claimed as the meeting grounds for these practitioners of magic. The field where Wells Hall, a dormitory, now stands, was once a major meeting place for witch covens. Rumors claim that an altar exists somewhere underneath Wells Hall, around which a number of bodies are buried upright. The other witch hotspot is the water tower in Starin Park, known colloquially as Witches Tower. One Halloween, students placed calls to the police after seeing a group of people clad in robes performing a ceremony by candlelight next to the tower. The tower is locked up and surrounded by barbed wire, but rumors still persist that it is a meeting place for witches.
The most fascinating rumors regarding Whitewater and its darker aspects regard the secret literature locked within the University’s library. Apparently, the contents of a certain book are so volatile that four different people have killed themselves after reading it. Three were University students, and one was a local resident who was found in a gas station with his wrists slashed. The luckier ones have merely gone completely mad after reading these books. Because of this, the library now keeps this powerful book under lock and key – its contents remain unknown.
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