Ghost Encounters in the Jones Visual Arts Center
Centre College is one of Kentucky’s oldest institutions, and with its founding dating back to 1819 its campus has been exposed to years of history which have fundamentally impacted the college’s landscape. The campus buildings bear not only the physical marks of history, but its ghosts too. It is not uncommon to hear stories of ghosts or haunted buildings at Centre College. A comprehensive investigation of these ghostly inhabitants unveils unique revelations about each building. This particular investigation focuses specifically on the Jones Visual Arts Center (JVAC).
Many students, faculty, and staff at Centre describe JVAC as “old”, “creepy”, and “unique”. Why use these words? What about this building warrants such a description? To help answer these questions and aid my investigation of JVAC, I asked Dr. Lee Jefferson, a Professor of Religion at Centre College, for an interview. Dr. Jefferson told not only of his own paranormal experience with JVAC, but also shared his opinions on Centre’s haunted buildings. He suggested that “all buildings have histories and all buildings have character.”[i] Centre’s ghosts are only as strong as the “character” of the building they inhabit, and JVAC’s character is certainly robust. Once occupying a space at the nexus of historic Danville, the railroad junction, the JVAC building slowly faded to the periphery of human activity. By the time Centre acquired the building, it was worn and forgotten; a shadow of its former significance. JVAC’s ghosts remind us that the “what is” does not always correspond to the “what was”. They appear not to be malicious ghosts, but active ghosts that prove this building was once a hub rather than a fringe.
Dr. Jefferson’s paranormal experience at JVAC can be interpreted within this framework and understood through its history. His paranormal account is as follows:
Early in Dr. Jefferson’s Centre career, the fall of 2009, he taught a class in JVAC and experienced his first “ghost” at the college. He was teaching an 8:00 AM class that year, so naturally Dr. Jefferson was one of the first in the building. Dr. Jefferson said he liked to arrive a little early too, so he could set up the projector for images he used during his lectures. This meant he arrived around 7:45 AM. On this particular morning it was still dark, and the artificial light of JVAC did little to help. Dr. Jefferson admits that JVAC is much darker than many of the other buildings on campus.
At first, this morning seemed like any other as Dr. Jefferson began to set up in Jones 201 (the first classroom left upon entry). Then, Dr. Jefferson heard a sound he had often heard before: creaking of the wood floor. He figured it was someone in the hallway, so Dr. Jefferson opened the door and looked out. No one was there. Dr. Jefferson went back inside and returned to starting up the computer. Then, he heard it again: “creak, creak, creak, creak” like footsteps in the dark hallway.
Certain that he had heard someone walking that morning, Dr. Jefferson questioned others that frequented the building: Prof. Jia, Prof. Powell, and Ann Silver the librarian. None of them had been in the building at 8:00 AM. Dr. Jefferson’s initial assumption was correct; he had been the only one in the building that morning.
Dr. Jefferson’s story is off-putting and leaves us wondering who could be stalking JVAC’s halls? Luckily, the building’s history might provide some answers.
The first building constructed at the site currently known as JVAC was completed between 1901 and 1908. It was larger than the current building and operated as a Hay Warehouse along the railroad tracks. By 1914, the building had been converted into the Bruce Tobacco Warehouse. It stayed this way until 1933. The Bruce Warehouse was suddenly destroyed on the night of November 20, 1933 by a massive fire which also burned two surrounding houses and caused $500 in damage to Breckinridge Hall. The Harrodsburg Fire Department had to be called in for aid, and it still took approximately two hours to quell the flames. No one was reported to have died, but a man in a nearby house (James Coomer) suffering from pneumonia was rushed to the hospital. Interestingly, the blame for the fire was placed on hoboes. It was surmised that they lit and dropped a match/cigarette in the warehouse.
In 1945, a new warehouse was built at the same location. It was initially used as a storage space for the Jackson Chair Company. Hughes Jackson Sr., an upstanding and well-respected man in Danville had started the company in 1941. In 1946, Jackson moved his upholstering department into the space which now also acted as the company’s headquarters. At the company’s peak, it employed about 100 citizens of Danville and brought pride to the town. It was said that Jackson Chair even supplied chairs to the government. When Hughes Jackson Sr. retired in 1960, the company seemed to be showing signs of floundering. His sons took over, but by 1967 the company employed less than 50 people and by 1968 the building on Beatty street was sold. Thus began the JVAC building’s long run of switching hands: from 1968-70 the building was a Comprehensive Care Center, from 1971-73 vacant, from 1974-78 an Adult Day Care Center, and from 1979-? The Bluegrass Regional Social House. Records are unknown post 1979, but in the early 1990’s Centre College finally acquired the building. At first, the building was mostly used as a storage facility and a place to house the ground operations. In 1996, the building was renovated and became the Jones Visual Art Center. The Art department moved in the following year and has been there ever since.
The history of the Jones Visual Arts Center building illuminates its past of human activity, or in other words, the many “footsteps” which have traversed its floors. Understanding JVAC’s history, gives an understanding to its “character”. The most common paranormal encounters in JVAC are subtle ones such as untraceable noises, creaking floors, and invisible footsteps: all indications of activity. The building’s character is one of shifted purpose: from nexus to outlier.
Although we now think of JVAC as the periphery of Centre’s campus, history shows us that Centre itself was once the periphery. The industrial importance of JVAC once made it a vital center of activity. The “ghostly footfalls” of JVAC provide a necessary reorientation: one that broadens our scope of Centre College as part of a greater regional whole. Today, I think we tend to assume Centre College as the jewel of Danville and orient the town around it. JVAC’s history and its paranormal encounters challenge that assumption. Centre is only a part of many working to sustain the vibrant Danville community which also serves many other roles: a county seat, a regional medical center, a railroad hub, etc. The JVAC building should not be understood as purely a fringe of Centre College.
Nowadays, JVAC’s shift in purpose is recognized only by the building’s ghosts. Dr. Jefferson admits, “It's a building that students don't really--I mean, unless you have a class there--you probably don't go there.”[ii] However, Dr. Jefferson is one of the few that has been there, and he is not disconcerted by JVAC’s ghosts. Rather, he interprets them as an “invitation to explore the space”, and in doing so he might also discover the building’s character of shifted purpose. Ghostly encounters in JVAC are simply the building reminding us of its important past and then beckoning us to occupy it with activity once again.
-Noel Dingle
[i]Lee M. Jefferson, interview by Richard W.N. Dingle, January 19, 2021, Zoom, transcript and recording, https://centreghosts.omeka.net/items/show/20.
[ii]Ibid.
Bibliography
“20 Nov 1933, Page 1 - The Advocate-Messenger at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com. Accessed January 24, 2021. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/143098610/?terms=bruce+tobacco&match=2.
“25 Sep 1960, Page 1 - The Advocate-Messenger at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com. Accessed February 2, 2021. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/143101288/?terms=Hughes+Jackson&match=1.
“27 Feb 1959, Page 1 - The Advocate-Messenger at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com. Accessed January 24, 2021. https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/143164111/?terms=Jackson+Chair&match=1.
Adams, Omar, “Aerial view of Centre College campus, 1949,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed January 24, 2021, https://centre.omeka.net/items/show/385.
“Aerial view of Centre College campus, 1970,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed January 24, 2021, https://centre.omeka.net/items/show/437.
Judith Pointer Keiser, email message, January 25, 2021.
Kraemer Art Company (45611), “Interior of a loose leaf tobacco warehouse, Danville, Ky.,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed January 24, 2021, https://centre.omeka.net/items/show/1006.
Lee M. Jefferson, interview by Richard W.N. Dingle, January 19, 2021, Zoom, transcript and recording, https://centreghosts.omeka.net/items/show/20.
R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Polk’s Danville City Directory 1960-1979, (2021): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pKs49ict25-1ERAQpJ-fu11JYLgYEam1.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Danville, Boyle County, Kentucky. Sanborn Map Company, Jun, 1901. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03155_004/.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Danville, Boyle County, Kentucky. Sanborn Map Company, May, 1908. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03155_005/.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Danville, Boyle County, Kentucky. Sanborn Map Company, Apr, 1914. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn03155_006/.
Wayne King, email message, January 25, 2021.