In Wheaton College’s 164-year history, many myths and legends have emerged around campus. Is there a person buried on campus? Is it true that the Billy Graham Hall is sinking a couple of feet every year? Did Wheaton have tunnels where formerly enslaved people hid when Blanchard was a stop on the Underground Railroad? And does Billy Graham Hall really have a secret occult library? These are just a few examples of the tall tales sometimes used to prank gullible first-year students and which circulate around Anderson Commons dinner tables.
Mysteries of the BGH
The Billy Graham Hall has several urban legends attached to it. Public Safety often sends out emails about the parking lot flooding during heavy rains on campus, and past floods have led some to believe that the BGH is sinking.
Bruce Koenigsberg, Wheaton’s architect, debunked this claim. He explained that there was a bit of settling in adjusting to the full load of the building, but the few cracks produced were remedied and there have not been signs of shifting since.
“I don’t know how the rumor started, but the building is built on a very deep wood pile clustered in groups of eight or twelve and sunk into the ground about 200 feet or so,” he said, “They’re very stable and the building is not sinking. So I think the building is pretty stable.”
Katherine Graber, assistant professor of library science and team leader for archives and special collections, noted that the BGH is on a floodplain, but that in recent years, the flooding lessened after drainage pipes were installed. She recalled a particularly bad instance of flooding in the 2010s, in which there was kayaking in the parking lots and all the cars were flooded.
The BGH is the subject of many campus tall tales. Legend has it there is an “occult” library on the fifth floor, and that’s still not the creepiest rumor about the building. Graber said her predecessor once found human remains in the Archives and Special Collections and then worked to hand them over to the DuPage County Coroner.
Regarding the occult library, Graber said that prior to its renovation, the fifth floor looked more like a creepy attic than a place to hold classes in, and evangelism resources for sharing the Gospel with people in cults had been stored there.
Ghosts of the Past
On the outside of the Student Services building lies a marker dedicated to James Burr, an abolitionist. Burr had wished to be buried in land never touched by slavery, and so he was laid to rest on campus in 1859. The grave’s presence on campus sparked rumors of his ghost haunting Williston in the 1920s, when it was still a women’s dorm. In 1928, a student sent a request to the Board of Trustees in 1928 to have Burr’s grave moved, due to the fear of the ghost and the oddity of having a grave sight on campus. The request was denied.
Another tall tale about Wheaton’s patron saint, Billy Graham, makes its way around the rumor mill. When Billy Graham was a student, he pastored a church called the Union Gospel Tabernacle on Sunday nights. The church met in the Masonic Temple in downtown Wheaton, across from what is now the coffee shop My Half of the Sky. Graham took over the pastorship from Professor Raymond Edman after Edman was appointed president of the college. Graham’s pastorship of this church sparked false rumors that he was a Freemason.
Blanchard Hall Tunnels
Wheaton is well-known for its roots in the abolitionist movement and has long been rumored to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad, although the Historical Race Review, released in the fall of 2023, was unable to corroborate those claims. Because of this history, speculation sprouted on campus that there were slave tunnels under Blanchard Hall. Koenigsberg also denied these rumors, saying that while tunnels were found under Blanchard, they were not built until 1872. The plaque outside Blanchard Hall claiming the building was a stop on the Underground Railroad may have helped pass rumors along, but Brent Etzel, dean of library science and associate professor of library archives, said that it could not be confirmed.
Etzel said the Wheaton tall tales can be mysterious and compelling, but urged students not to get too caught up, or be too gullible, to rumors about Wheaton’s history without evidence.
“I would just be cautious about accepting what other people say as the truth,” said Etzel. “You know, go check it out, do a little bit of research, look at the facts and make your own decisions.”
