Perhaps the most iconic building on DU’s campus is the towering, ornately gothic Mary Reed Hall. The imposing architecture, paired with rumors that Mary Reed herself haunts the vaulted hallways, makes this building a sensational landmark of DU. But how did it come to be? 

Mary Dean Johnson was born in Bucyrus, Ohio on Oct.8, 1875. She later moved to Colorado Springs, where she met Verner Zevola Reed, a mining tycoon and one of Colorado’s most successful businessmen. The two married in 1893 and eventually had three children, Joseph, Verner Jr. and Margery. When Verner Zevola Reed died in 1919, he left his wife an estate worth approximately $20 million, which is equal to $400 million today. 

 

Reed put her inheritance to philanthropic use. After the sudden death of her daughter Margery in 1925, she commissioned the construction of Margery Reed Hall, a memorial hall dedicated to her daughter, who was a DU alumna and assistant professor in the English department. A few years later, in 1931, she donated $500,000 to construct her namesake building, a new library on campus in the same gothic style as Margery Reed Hall. The two buildings, mother and daughter, commemorate the lives of two women who made DU what it is today. 

Over the next 10 years, Reed continued to donate money to the university and served on the Board of Trustees as well as receiving an honorary degree in 1939. Additionally, she donated to education and health care organizations across Colorado, proving that her generosity extended beyond DU, and to Colorado as a whole. 

Dubbed by the Denver press as “Colorado’s Lady Bountiful” for her many contributions, Reed died in 1945 at the age of 70. Today, her regal portrait, painted in 1923, keeps watch over the Renaissance Room in Mary Reed Hall, which now houses administrative offices.

Despite her positive contributions to DU, most students today only know her as a spirit that allegedly haunts Mary Reed Hall. Tales include books flying off shelves, strange noises, sightings of transparent figures, custodians who refuse to work alone at night and elevators as well as lights that act on their own accord. 

Some argue that it is not Reed who haunts the building, but her daughter Margery. Others say that Marcella Miller Dupont, the daughter of wealthy Colorado pioneers, haunts the Dupont Room, which she donated to the university in 1966. 

I myself have experienced some eerie things at Mary Reed Hall. I was once in the building late at night with my friends when we heard some shuffling coming from an empty hallway. One of my friends remembers hearing a growl. Inside the old-fashioned elevator, the doors closed nearly all the way before suddenly jerking back open. Despite this chilling experience, Mary Reed Hall remains one of my favorite places on campus.

Whether it is haunted or not, do not be put off by Mary Reed Hall. Notwithstanding its sheer architectural beauty, the building has a rich and illustrious reputation at DU and in Denver, thanks to Reed’s commitment to education and welfare. Surely, if ghosts do haunt the building, they are benevolent academics who give students out late a harmless scare from time to time.