Cedar City Utah’s Most Haunted

Was it a figment of the imagination or something truly paranormal? Tales of the unexplained abound just about everywhere you go.  Many are made up and a hoax but others have a genuine quality and authenticity to them.  My own account actually happened at one of the locations in this article, though not the same that has been reported.

It is no secret that I was a Theatre student at Southern Utah University from 2010 to 2015.  During a late night rehearsal in the auditorium, something that happens a lot, me and a few others just happen to look up into the balcony of the empty audience and could see a shadowy figure that looked to us like a man in a top-hat.  Admittedly we could not see very well with the stage lighting shining on us so it could have been a trick if the lights, but it was appearing to be moving from the left to the right side of a row of seats. To this day I have no real answer for what we saw that night.

Most everyone has a similar story that are just out of the ordinary,  seeing something that should not be there, hearing sounds from an empty room, electronics suddenly turning on or off, on their own. And many like myself have an interest in hearing of such places and stories.  So here is a short list of place in or near Cedar City UT, that are considered to be haunted.

Mountain Meadow Massacre Site

Roughly 35 miles southwest of Cedar City UT, is Mountain Meadow a site where a wagon train from Arkansas heading for California was tragically slaughtered by militia and members of Paiute Tribe.  Reports say the cries of Men, Women, and Children can be heard on the grounds, as well a figure of an old man thought to be John D. Lee, one of the men convicted for the crime, sobbing at the site.

Southern Utah University Auditorium

A number of places on the SUU camp actually come up as being haunted.  And although I have not experienced these myself it is said that the figure of a woman in a purple dress has been seen and the sounds of children in the tunnel connecting the Auditorium to the Addams Memorial Theatre can be heard.

Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery

Occasionally the sound of the song "Deep Purple" can be heard from the 3rd floor piano.  Supposedly a young girl was going to perform this piece but was found dead at the piano with the sheet music still in place as if she was practicing.

SUU's Old Main

SUU's most famous ghost is that of Virginia Loomis.  Virginia's body was found on a boulder in a quarry near Cedar City and bricks used in the construction of Old Main were made from the blood stained boulder she was found on.  Reports of poltergeist activity of the elevator moving on its own and apparitions of a woman have terrified many of the locals.

Again are these the imaginations of a weary mind? or the workings of the paranormal? Whatever it is there are things that just cannot be explained and we may never find out.