Banbury Place Building 13

Building 13 at a converted industrial complex in Eau Claire. A tenant was accidentally electrocuted here, and his presence has reportedly been felt by people in the building ever since.

Banbury Place occupies the massive 1.9-million-square-foot former Gillette Safety Tire Company factory along the Eau Claire River in downtown Eau Claire. The plant opened on May 23, 1917 with 250 workers producing 200 rubber tires and 200 inner tubes per day. By the 1920s, the workforce had grown to 1,600, turning out 19,000 tires and 14,000 inner tubes daily. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government converted it into the Eau Claire Ordnance Plant for small arms munitions production, and at peak wartime capacity more than 6,200 workers staffed the facility, 61 percent of them women. The plant and its employees received the Army-Navy E Award for excellence in production in 1943. U.S. Rubber repurchased the property in 1944 for $1,025,000 and resumed tire manufacturing, eventually producing 20,000 tires daily with 4,400 employees. After decades of corporate ownership changes through U.S. Rubber, Uniroyal, B.F. Goodrich, and finally Michelin, the factory closed permanently on June 26, 1992, displacing 1,358 workers and ending 75 years of tire production. Developers Bill Cigan and Jack Kaiser purchased the property in August 1992 and renamed it Banbury Place, converting it into a multi-use complex that today houses 155 businesses employing 500 to 600 people.

Beneath the complex runs a massive underground tunnel system stretching from building two to building ten on one side and from 3X to 11 on the Galloway Street side. Current owner Jack Kaiser explains that the tunnels originally carried processed steam lines and electrical systems essential to vulcanizing rubber. The passages contain ladders, stairs, abandoned machinery, and accumulated dust from over a century of industrial use. The Chippewa Valley Museum's director has noted that people report getting "this creepy feeling when they've been in the tunnels of Banbury Place."

The most notorious ghost story centers on Building 13. According to paranormal researcher Chad Lewis, who studied psychology at UW-Stout and has traveled globally documenting supernatural occurrences, a man who was growing marijuana inside the building's electrical infrastructure was fatally electrocuted while attempting to hook up an air conditioning unit for temperature control. His body went undiscovered for days, and Lewis recounts the grim detail: "When they did find his body it was turned to mush and was a puddle of skin and bones." Sherry Strub documented the haunting in her book Wisconsin's Ghosts, noting that the screams and painful moans heard in Building 13 sound like the ghost reliving the accident that took his life. The phantom hum of an old air conditioning unit that no longer exists echoes through the building, and the number 13 has only deepened the location's dark reputation.

Activity extends well beyond Building 13. Employees and tenants throughout the complex report seeing ghostly figures and dark shapes believed to be former factory workers moving through the hallways. Maureen Forster, a Banbury Place employee, told the UW-Eau Claire Spectator that "people have claimed to see things, dating way back into the underground tunnels, when Banbury used to be a tire company." Strange moans, screams, and footsteps originate from various sections of the building, and Forster noted that while no verified evidence confirms the electrocution resulted in a fatality, the stories persist stubbornly among staff. When the Spectator contacted Banbury Place management for comment on the alleged hauntings, they refused to provide any response.

The factory's 75 years of industrial history left a deep imprint on the building and the community. The announcement of the closure on January 8, 1991 devastated the city. Union leader Darrel Wekkin reflected that "it was a way of life for Eau Claire for a lot of years, and it was coming to an end." Some suicides and divorces were attributed to the stress of the mass layoff. With thousands of workers passing through these buildings over decades of demanding industrial labor, and with the wartime ordnance production adding another layer of intensity, locals believe the complex absorbed more than just rubber and gunpowder. Banbury Place now hosts apartments, art studios, fitness centers, the Uniroyal Tire Factory Gallery, and a Mural Gallery, but the old factory's spirits appear to have stayed on the job.