HAUNTED DAYTON
October 23, 2014
JImaur Calhoun
arts & entertainment editor
In continuation of this month’s “spooktacular” stories of hauntings all across Sinclair Community College, this week’s story brings to light hauntings across the entire Miami Valley, with some locations that some of you readers were aware of and others that may send chills down your spine.
Victoria Theater, located in Downtown Dayton, is a famous performance arts building that has been open since 1866. Surviving such disasters as two fires, one just three years after its opening, the great Dayton flood of 1913, and almost being torn down in 1967, the building has stood the test of time. Throughout its many changes, two or possible three guests of the paranormal kind have always been a mainstay with the theater.
One ghost, named Lucille, may not exactly be a ghost but the manifestation of her emotions from an incident that took place in the theater. Other sources have said that Lucille lived a long life but after dying, her ghost returned to the site of her most traumatic experience.
The ghosts that are for sure haunting the Victoria Theater is an actress, dubbed “Vicky,” who seemed to have disappeared in her dressing room while retrieving a fan and a possible employee who committed suicide in a most bizarre manner in one of the theater seats.
Up the street from both Sinclair and Victoria Theater is Stivers High School for the Arts. Built in 1908, the school offers programs for creative writing, dance, band and much more, but one curriculum wasn’t really expected for the students to learn, how to deal with hauntings.
The apparition behind the school’s hauntings was a former teacher, possibly known as Ms. Tyler, who swam in the school’s swimming pool every Friday. She was found one particular Monday, face down in the pool with a locket in one hand. One of the pictures in her locket was of her parents while the other was a half torn picture of a man, possibly her student aide, whom she may have been having an affair with. Students of the school are well aware of Ms. Tyler, even going as far as to name one of their plays “The Ghost of Stivers.” Maybe the students of Stivers should’ve earned an extra diploma for bravery.
Special thank you to the websites forgottenoh.com, ohioexploration.com, and mostmetro.com. Without them, this article would not have been possible.
Copyright © 2014, The Clarion
Thank you to Jimaur Calhoun for giving a shout-out to the OES website in his article about haunts in the Dayton area.