Willard Library

A Victorian Gothic public library opened in 1885, the oldest public library building in Indiana. Founded by Willard Carpenter, the red brick building features pointed arches and a castellated entrance. Famous for its live ghost cams that stream 24/7.

Willard Library at 21 North First Avenue in Evansville, Indiana, is widely regarded as the most haunted library in the United States. The Victorian Gothic building was constructed beginning in 1876 under the vision of founder Willard Carpenter, a wealthy Evansville businessman inspired by the Emma Willard School in New York. After Carpenter's death in 1883, his estate funding accelerated completion, and the library officially opened on March 28, 1885. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and remains a working public library to this day -- one that happens to share its halls with a famous ghost.

The first documented encounter with the Grey Lady occurred in 1937, when a library janitor working in the basement claimed to see "a woman, clad all in gray, staring right back at him" before she vanished into the darkness. Since that night, the Grey Lady has been sighted by dozens of witnesses over nearly nine decades. The prevailing theory about her identity centers on Louise Carpenter, the founder's daughter, who was cut out of Willard Carpenter's will in favor of the library. Louise allegedly sued the estate, but the case failed, and according to the legend, she never forgave her father for choosing books over his own child. Her ghost, dressed in the grey garments she was known for in life, is said to haunt the building in an eternal protest.

The Grey Lady is most frequently encountered near the children's section and in the basement, though she has been spotted throughout the building. Her manifestations go well beyond simple apparitions. Witnesses report a thick scent of perfume that appears and vanishes without explanation, sudden drops in temperature, books and chairs that move on their own, water faucets that turn on and off randomly, lights that flicker, and disembodied voices calling "hello" through the stacks. The entity has reportedly reached out and touched visitors, brushing against their hair and earrings. Unaccounted items are regularly discovered throughout the building, placed in locations where no staff member left them.

Among the most notable witnesses are library staff members themselves. Assistant Children's Librarian reported the most recent confirmed sighting on August 10, 2010, in the basement hallway. Margaret Maier, the Children's Librarian, and Helen Kamm, a Library Assistant, have both documented encounters. University of Southern Indiana lecturers witnessed the apparition "peering into water." Perhaps most striking, police officers responding to a security alarm at the library spotted two ghosts in an upstairs window -- suggesting the Grey Lady may not haunt alone. A local television weathercaster and a library patron who encountered the spirit in the elevator have also added their accounts to the growing body of testimony.

In 1999, the library installed live Ghost Cam cameras that broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, allowing anyone in the world to search for signs of the Grey Lady from home. The cameras have been running for over twenty-five years, and while the most recent confirmed in-person sighting was in 2010, the Ghost Cams have captured anomalies that paranormal enthusiasts continue to debate. In 2007, visiting psychics confirmed a paranormal presence at the library, and Syfy's Ghost Hunters featured Willard Library in an episode that brought national attention to the haunting. The library hosts annual Ghost Tours each October that draw substantial crowds -- the inaugural tour in the late 1990s attracted approximately 800 participants, and the event has grown since.

Willard Library embraces its spectral resident as part of its identity, maintaining the Ghost Cams, producing educational materials about the Grey Lady legend, and welcoming paranormal investigators alongside its regular patrons. Whether Louise Carpenter's grudge truly transcends death or the Grey Lady is someone else entirely, the library remains one of America's most thoroughly documented and publicly accessible haunted locations.