THE GHOSTS OF OLD ARMORY

submitted by William Dodge

Johnson: In the city that was once our state capitol, there are many stories of ghostly hauntings. One I was personally witness to events that took place at the State University in a facility that has since been torn down. Officially, the building was condemned as unsafe, but there may have been other reasons to remove the building from campus!

     The structure was originally built to store weapons of war and later used as a training center for the Iowa National Guard and ROTC students attending college. It became part of the University after being decommissioned as an active military site, and housed the Geography Department as well as the Department of Theatre and Communication Studies for many years. When questioned for this story, the University declined to comment as to why the Geography Department was moved out of Old Armory and its entire portion of the building was closed and locked up tight. In fact, it proved impossible to ascertain the exact date the transfer occurred. Physical evidence I saw with my own eyes clearly showed that the action was taken so abruptly, that books, furniture, and an entire map collection were left to gather dust. And no one ever returned to retrieve those materials prior to Old Armory's demolition.

     There were lots of hidden nooks and crannies, hidden passages, and secret rooms within the building, including an abandoned underground Olympic sized swimming pool. Access to the pool area was only possible by breaking into a basement storage closet and crawling through a narrow tunnel without benefit of light or good air. Such oddities kept Old Armory steeped in tales of strange happenings. Any member of its janitorial staff was immediately rotated out to other areas of duty if they were caught talking to the student body. As a result of the imposed secrecy, these custodians themselves became objects of much speculation and suspicion.

     Exid by such mysteries, I gathered a few friends and climbed to the roof of the building where a trap door into the Tower section above the abandoned Geography Department was rumored to exist. Under cover of darkness we took hand torches and shimmied across to the Tower. There we discovered the trap door. It was unlocked. We spent an hour convincing ourselves to going inside. The trap door was the sole entrance to the Tower. Summoning courage, we descended into the tower and made our way cautiously down the stairs to the uppermost floor. A terrible commotion arose from nearby. We knew no one had gone in before us because of our hour-long wait on the roof. We turned the corner and in our lamplight saw something I shall never forget.

     At the back of the room, behind a chicken wire fence, were two uniformed soldiers. They were holding long lengths of chain which they were using to brutally hit another uniformed youth, struggling on the floor and tied up in rope. The soldiers were shouting obscenities at the battered and bleeding boy on the floor, hitting him repeatedly with the chains, and kicking him with their boots. It was clear they intended to beat the boy to death. One of our party shouted for them to stop as the rest of us stood there in open mouthed shock at the viciousness of the attack. The two who held the chains turned and looked at us, surprised at being interrupted. Then all three slowly faded like mist evaporating in the sunlight.

     I am not ashamed to admit that we, being young and frightened, fled the scene. Some of our party returned the following day to examine the room where we had witnessed the spectral brutality, but found no trace. The floor was covered in a deep carpet of dust, and the only prints to be seen were our own. But we did notice two rusted lengths of chain in the corner of the room, covered in dust.





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