The Texas School for the Deaf is one of the oldest state buildings in Texas. It was built on the south side of the Colorado River. Children came from all around the state of Texas for a free education and assistance based on their hearing and speaking disabilities. It, in fact, was one of the first institutions in the state of Texas.
It has been notoriously haunted for as long as I can remember. When I started Austin Ghost Tours in 1996, one of the first places where people started telling me stories about things happening was the school for the deaf. Here is one of those stories.
It was 3:00 and I was mightily battling Mr Sandman when my supervisor showed up one night to check on my cottage where I worked the graveyard shift at Texas School for the Deaf. I worked as a night attendant, “Lee., she said, I can hear the showers running in the bathrooms. Didn’t you turn them off”? My first thought was, Thank goodness she didn’t catch me asleep on the job. After all, it was 3:00 AM. But then her question brought me wide awake, even more than I was already, if that’s humanly possible. Impossible, I thought. I know they were off when I did rounds at the beginning of my shift at midnight. Still, I’m deaf, and I doubt she’d be bringing it to my attention if it weren’t the real thing. So I got up and went to check both bathrooms in the two wings of the cottage. Sure enough, all the showers were going full blast and the water was scalding hot. After shutting them off., I went back to the hallway and explained to my supervisor that I always check everything in the cottage when I come on duty. That night, everything was off before I sat down in the hallway.
I could tell she believed me. We have both heard stories about paranormal activity occurring regularly at the School for the Deaf Cottages. Most of the incidents are centered on unexplained water activity, showers, and faucets inexplicably turning on at odd times. During the year I worked at the school for the deaf, I witnessed several more incidents of paranormal activity, all centered in the cottage’s bathrooms. Sometimes the water was freezing cold and other times it was scalding hot. I was curious, what is the history of this campus that so much paranormal activity occurs on such a regular basis?
Lee to Jeanine Plumer
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