With over 200 years of history, the IU Bloomington campus has had plenty of folktales and legends. Many of them are lighthearted, like how shaking Herman B Wells’ hand will give you good luck or kissing your significant other at the Rose Well House at midnight on Valentine's Day means you will be together forever. Some of them, however, tell tales of ghosts and other spooky happenings on campus.
Dunn Cemetery is located next to the Indiana Memorial Union and is pretty scary on its own, without the scary story attached to it. The cemetery houses the Dunn family, a prominent family in Bloomington in the early-to-mid-1800s that owned a lot of the land that campus now sits on.
In 1883, IU trustees purchased 20 acres of land to construct a new campus. Samuel Dunn eventually made an agreement with IU so it could expand as much as they needed as long as the cemetery remained.
A 200-year-old cemetery is bound to have at least one spooky story to go along with it, and Dunn Cemetery is no exception. A lady in black is said to be seen in the cemetery occasionally. She is believed to be Agnes Dunn, a member of the family who tended to soldiers during the civil war.
Just next to Dunn Cemetery is the IMU. With a building that big there are sure to be some ghosts roaming the hallways. Some people believe there are at least a few ghosts in the Student Involvement Tower, which used to be a part of the Biddle Hotel.
Because of the many different people who stayed at the hotel, there are a few differing stories of possible happenings in the tower. Ghosts are said to haunt the IMU, and maintenance workers tend to notice. One apparently said they saw a ghost while shutting down the north end of the building according to a ghost walk attendee.
Built between 1938 and 1941, the IU Auditorium is another building that houses a spooky story. One legend about the auditorium says that when it was being built a worker lost his footing on some scaffolding and fell to his death. A large pool of blood formed around the body staining the floor.
The floorboards were supposedly changed a few times, but the stains kept re appearing. It is also said that during especially emotional or tragic moments that happen during performances at the auditorium, the blood will seep back to the surface of the floor to remind people that real tragedy has happened there.
Owen Hall was one of the first buildings on the Bloomington campus and is part of the Old Crescent, which houses campus’ oldest buildings. The third floor of the building housed cadavers and to get them up there people would use a dumbwaiter. Occasionally limbs would get severed from the cadavers in the machinery, according to a ghost walk attendee.
As one story goes, one night a group of boys decided to take one of these severed arms and hang it from the light in the room of a girl they knew while she was away. They awaited her arrival but after some time had passed and they still hadn’t heard screams, they went back to her room. Instead of seeing a scared girl, they saw her sitting in the corner of the room eating the arm.
These are just a few of the tales that are told about campus; however, there are many more. Each October, the Folklore and Ethnomusicology Student Association hosts a ghost walk where it shares these and many more stories from campus. The walk usually costs around $3 to attend, and you can find out about it closer to the event on the department’s website.
This story was originally published in the Indiana Daily Student's spring 2026 Source Campus Visitor's Guide.
