The Gosser Fine Arts Center was not always what it is today. In the 1960s, it served as a Catholic hospital known as the Old Rosery Hospital. The building once housed a morgue in what is now the basement, and while many patients died there, some say not everyone ever checked out—even after death.
“With the fact that it was a tuberculosis hospital, lots of folks died there,” said Administrative Assistant for Music Kaleb Trent.
Trent said that even people who haven’t heard the rumor, or don’t believe it, will still feel unsettled if they spend time alone in the Gosser building at night.
Trent said that he does believe the building is haunted.
“There is definitely some really weird energy,” he said. “Even though I’ve been taking classes and working there for almost six years, I still feel unsettled when I know I’m by myself in that building.”
He said when he’s working alone in his downstairs office, he feels as if he’s being watched through the small panel window on his door.
CU graduate and former band member Lauren Oogletree said she heard the rumor when she came to CU in 2020 as a freshman. She said the rumor has been around for more than 10 years and believes it’s true.
“There has been a time when there was a door slam down in the basement when there was almost nobody left in Gosser, but there was no one there,” said Oogletree.
She said she also heard her name being called when nobody was in the building with her.
Another CU graduate student, Shane Messer, said when he was a freshman, he would be in the building at 3 a.m. and hated leaving the building. Messer said his instincts would tell him to run.
“It felt almost like [I was] being watched,” he said.
He said other people would see a quiet girl dressed in black walking in the basement. No one knows who this girl is, but she’s believed to be a ghost.
Even those who don’t fully believe the building is haunted say that strange things have happened at night. Music history professor Blake Johnson said even though he doesn’t think the building is full-on haunted, there is something off about it.
“I once came in over Christmas break. The building was locked down; I had to open the door myself. The second I walked into the lobby – I knew the building was empty – but there was just a huge crash down here,” said Johnson.
He said no one else was in the building with him.
Johnson said he had a student a few years ago who would do homework at the end of the hallway downstairs. He said this student told him when she was doing her homework, a dark shape would move toward her. He said it would disappear every time she looked up but would reappear when she looked down at her work.
CU junior Ethan Hutchins said when he first came to CU, he used to believe the rumor was true.
“I believed it for a little while because everyone talked about it; everyone was so convincing about it,” Hutchins said. “Part of the reason I thought it was because, you know, you hear stuff at night. It’s creepy and it just feels whack.”
Even though Hutchins said he believes this is only a rumor, he said he had at least two paranormal experiences. He said the atmosphere in the basement – where the morgue used to be — “feels weird.”
“Sometimes you’ll get a tingly feeling down the back of your neck,” said Hutchins. “Someone once told me recently that they heard a marimba being hit. They were sitting out here, and they heard a marimba being struck, and went in the band room to see who was practicing and there was no one in there.”
Hutchins said if the Gosser building is haunted, there are probably around five ghosts, including the infamous “Gosser Ghost.” He said each ghost would live in a different room.
“The band room probably has one, I bet the basement has a couple, especially in the art rooms,” saidHutchins.
Associate Professor of Art James Pickens used to teach three-dimensional design classes in the Gosser Fine Arts Center basement. He said he’s heard the rumor, but he doesn’t believe it’s true.
“While I believe in some things science can’t explain, I do not believe Gosser is haunted,” he said. “However, I do know for a fact the basement has been home to a family of raccoons, but unfortunately, they are not ghost racoons.”
