Is NC State haunted? Take a tour of its tunnels (and the legends lurking inside)
North Carolina State University is haunted.
That’s according to Tim Peeler, N.C. State’s marketing writer and university history expert. He told The News & Observer he “can confirm that NC State was haunted before the doors opened in 1889.”
There’s the demolished orphanage on Centennial Campus. The influenza patients who died in Winslow Hall back when it was used as an infirmary. The suspicious activity in the steam tunnels that snake below campus.
Chancellor Kevin Howell has told new employees, in jest, not to work in Holladay Hall — the oldest building on campus — past 5 p.m. or on weekends, according to Peeler.
Want to see for yourself?
This weekend, Triangle Walking Tours will offer a Ghost and Urban Legend Walk at NC State. The one-hour tour, which costs $15, will leave from Titmus Theater at 10 p.m. on Friday, June 19, Saturday, June 20, and Sunday, June 21. The tour is not affiliated with the university.
Stories of demonic creatures in NC State’s tunnels
Triangle Walking Tours owner Andrew Nason told The N&O that he offers this tour only occasionally because he gets so many requests to bring it back. Nason likes to run the tour in the summer so it doesn’t disturb students.
“When people think of ghost stories, they don’t typically think of land grant universities from the late 19th century known for their engineering and veterinary programs,” Nason said. “But with NC State, maybe the students there are just great storytellers, because they have come up with some great ghost stories and urban legends that I’m always happy to relay.”
His favorite stop on the tour is the steam tunnels, and said the stories of demonic creatures within them have “more of a historical basis to this than you might expect.”
Nason’s tour company, which he started in 2023, offers numerous tours across the Triangle, including the Durham African American History and Black Wall Street Tour, the Dorothea Dix Insane Asylum: Dark History Tour, and the Chapel Hill LGBT History Tour.
Then, there’s Nason’s personal favorite: the Raleigh True Crime Tour.
Like the NC State tour, Nason said it’s “another one that deals with the concept of blurred lines between truth and rumors, with questions of justice and whether or not it gets served, and bizarre stories that leave people thinking: ‘Did this really happen in Raleigh?’”
‘Supernaturally cursed from its very foundation’
Nason says his favorite ghost stories are “the ones that tell us something about ourselves, about our history, and about our communities.”
“Oh boy, do the ones at NC State do that quite well,” Nason said.
Here’s an excerpt from the tour’s official description: “Why do NC State University students whisper of creepy entities in the university’s underground tunnels? Who is the ghost of a long-dead nurse who still desperately tries to heal the infirm? And why does the university’s official history claim that the school was supernaturally cursed from its very foundation?”
Creepy tales, curses and NC State ‘stuff’
Peeler also hosts a walking tour of NC State campus, dubbed the Red Terror Ghost Tour, reservable via email request to tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
He says that despite being so well-versed in the creepy tales of campus, Peeler doesn’t believe in curses. And there’s one curse he particularly rejects: “NC State (stuff).”
Urban Dictionary defines that curse as “an inevitable chain of events in sports where a blatant bad call or bizarre unlucky play causes in a total collapse of confidence, resulting in multiple, unforced, and devastating errors.”
Peeler, who has written three history books about NC State basketball, said he believes the school has made its own good fortune more times than it has fallen short.
Reservations for this weekend’s Triangle Walking Tours’ Ghost and Urban Legend Walk at NC State can be made online here.
