Indiana State University - Burford Hall

A residence hall on the campus of Indiana State University in Terre Haute. The building has been home to generations of college students since the mid-20th century.

Burford Hall at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana, is a residence hall that has harbored one of the campus's most persistent and unusual ghost legends for over half a century. Originally built as a women's freshman dormitory with communal bathrooms on each floor, the building became the setting for the legend of "Barfing Barb" -- a spirit whose manifestations are as unsettling as they are unique in the annals of campus hauntings.

According to the legend, a student named Barb died tragically of alcohol poisoning on the fourth floor bathroom of Burford Hall. After a night of heavy drinking, she collapsed on the bathroom floor and was not discovered in time to save her life. Since her death, residents of the fourth floor have reported hearing the sounds of violent vomiting and crying emanating from the communal bathroom -- always when the bathroom is empty.

The earliest documented account dates to 1969, when a student was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of someone being violently ill in the bathroom. Concerned that a fellow resident was in distress, she went to check on the person, only to find the bathroom completely empty. The vomiting sounds stopped the moment she entered. This pattern has repeated itself for decades: the sounds of retching and crying begin, a concerned resident investigates, and the bathroom is found unoccupied. The phenomenon was distinctive enough to inspire an academic paper titled "Pain, Pleasure, and the Spectral: The Barfing Ghost of Burford Hall," which examined the legend through the lens of folklore studies.

Beyond the bathroom haunting, additional paranormal activity has been reported on the fourth floor. Residents have heard screaming in the hallways, objects have been thrown by unseen forces, and knocking on doors occurs when no one is in the corridor. The disturbances tend to intensify during late-night hours, consistent with the legend's narrative of a death that occurred after a night of partying.

The main lobby of Burford Hall features a portrait commonly referred to as "Old Lady Burford," and a secondary legend has grown around the painting. Students claim that staring at the portrait for an extended period of time will bring bad luck or cause something negative to happen to the viewer. The portrait has become a dare among incoming freshmen, who challenge each other to maintain eye contact with the painting as a test of nerve.

Ashley Hood, a local paranormal author who has published Haunted Terre Haute and Haunted Cemeteries of Indiana, includes Burford Hall on her Tell Tale Tours walking tour of ISU's campus and downtown Terre Haute. The tour, which has been running since at least 2020, covers the campus's most haunted buildings and shares the documented legends with visitors. ISU's student media, including WZIS radio and the Indiana Statesman newspaper, have featured the Burford Hall ghost story multiple times, and the legend has been passed down through generations of students who live in the building.

Burford Hall's ghost story stands out in the crowded field of campus hauntings because of its specificity and its uncomfortable physicality. Most campus ghosts appear as shadowy figures or create atmospheric disturbances. Barb announces her presence in the most visceral way possible -- a reminder that her death was not romantic or mysterious, but the ugly, preventable consequence of alcohol poisoning. The legend persists because it carries a warning embedded in its horror, making it one of the rare ghost stories that may actually save lives by making students think twice about drinking to excess.