By far, one of Kenosha's most beautiful and mysterious places is the awesome, meandering maze of structures which make up the legendary Kemper Hall.  Kemper Center, as it is now called, is situated right at Lake Michigan's shoreline.

 

     Initially called “St. Clair's Hall”, Kemper Hall opened its Seminary for girls in 1860's.  The first building being Charles Durkee Mansion, sold to the church by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Durkee (see below article).  Later, other buildings, wings, a chapel, and dormitories were added and connected to each other.  Most of the paranormal activity reported at Kemper centers around a five story observatory which held an awesome telescope, and the spiral staircase that led up to it.  There are rumors of a ghost of a nun who either fell, or was pushed to her death down the spiral staircase. 

    

     Kemper operated until 1975, when the school closed its doors, and graduated its last class.  Since then, it has undergone some major restorations, and it is operated today as a county park, with its buildings, rooms, and chapel used for various weddings, meetings and yes even Halloween haunted houses run by the area junior clubs.

 

     When I first started out to research Kemper, very little could be found in the history books, and materials available at the library.  I had heard rumors that the rumors were untrue, and that the ghost stories were made up only after the school's closing, to keep vandals and teenagers away.  So, I made a slideshow video and posted it on youtube, and at the end, I had a message for any former students to contact me.  Well, it took awhile, but I did hear from two very nice ladies, seperately, who both wanted to know what it is that I wanted to know about Kemper. So I asked them the question (were the ghost stories around back then) and both said unanimously, that the stories of the ghosts were always around, long before either one of them had arrived.  So there you have it, once and for all, it could not have been made up to keep vandals away, because they already existed.  One also went on to say that she remembers it as being wonderful and fun going to school there (which I do not doubt) and that you certainly were always "aware" of something spiritual around you, but had never seen for herself.  She said it was just common knowledge that it had ghosts, but nobody was frightened or really concerned much about it.

 

     One day in May, 2006, my daughter was doing a social studies project about Kenosha History.  I decided to take her over to Kemper Center, so she could use it as one of her landmarks she had to study for her project.  As we were walking the grounds that Sunday afternoon, I was taking photos of the different buildings, and we were back near a rear courtyard when I snapped this photo.

 

 

     Later on that night, when I was reviewing the pictures, something caught my eye in this photo.

 

 

     When  you look closer at it, it looks like this;

 

 

     I think it was at this moment, that my total fascination with Kemper Center and its ghosts and mysteries grabbed me,  It has fast become one of my favorite places to study and visit.    

 

 

~ C. Shatkins (2006) All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

 

 

Simmons Library (1900)

The Gilbert M. Simmons Library Secret Tomb

 

     In 1836, storms drove a group of settlers off of choppy Lake Michigan. One of the female passengers had become violently ill due to motion sickness. Among the settlers bound from Chicago to Milwaukee on that trip were Charles and Catharine Durkee. Mr. and Mrs. Durkee liked the area, so they decided to stay and make their home in what was then called Southport. Their log cabin stood in what is now Library Park in Kenosha. Although some records indicate that that Simmons Library is on the actual spot where the cabin once stood, there are far more contradicting reports that indicate that the cabin was in the S.W. quadrant of present day Library Park, with a path running through to foot/horse traffic going right through the middle of it, which is where the library stands now.

     Catharine Durkee died tragically of disease at the age of 25 on August 24, 1938. Her mother and sister had said she had hinted that she was pregnant. She was buried in what is now called Green Ridge Cemetery, not too far from where she lived with her husband. It is said that poor Charles Durkee loved this woman immensely, and that she may have been pregnant at the time of her death. After her death, Charles Durkee donated a sizable portion of land for a cemetery. For a long time, this cemetery was known as Kenosha City Cemetery, but was later renamed named Green Ridge. Mr. Durkee went on to remarry a woman named Caroline, and had a mansion built on what is part of present day Kemper Center (Kemper Hall). Charles Durkee grieved his first love until his death in 1870, and his second wife ended up having mental problems later in life. He went on to be one of Kenosha’s most respected founding fathers, but later moved to become the governor of Utah. Upon his death, he was buried in Kenosha next to his first love, Catharine.

     Kenosha newspapers, library reference materials, and local lore all indicated that the library is haunted by a ghost/poltergeist. Heavy wooden chairs and tables are heard by many employees sliding across marble floors, when it is investigated, nothing is out of place. Security buzzers go off simultaneously, with nobody around to trip them. Books can be heard falling from shelves on a Sunday afternoon when the library is closed, but no books out of place can be found. Sudden rushes of air move past, but nobody has walked by. Newspapers can be heard rattling on the upper floor, only to be unexplained, and nothing out of place. Although nobody has claimed to seen her, one photographer might have caught the ghost on film outside the library one night.

     It is speculated that the ghost haunting the library must be Catharine Durkee, being the only one on record to have died on the property. This explanation would surely make sense, being as tragic a story as it was. I have to wonder myself if it might not be Charles Durkee himself, or perhaps both of them together. Both were highly educated, and lovers of literature and the arts. Perhaps Charles Durkee meant for that area to memorialize Catharine, and not Zalmon Simmons’ son Gilbert, which the library itself was built to memorialize. We may never know for sure, but the fact remains, this library most probably is haunted by a “trickster”, who makes his/her presence known from time to time.

     As I dug further into this, the ghost isn’t the only bizarre story pertaining to Simmons Library. There also is a little known urban legend about an actual secret tomb under the library. I scanned the page from the book which you may read for yourself here at this link.

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~ C. Shatkins (2006) All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

Urban Legends; Supernatural Curiosities & Other Weird Stuff