Macky Auditorium (Gray Bender/CU Independent file photo)
Since its completion in 1922, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Macky Auditorium has been a prominent center for the performing arts in Boulder.
Over the years, the auditorium has been home to commencement ceremonies, live musical performances, dance performances and famous guest speakers.
However, Macky also has a darker history. In July 1966, Joseph Dyre Morse, a 37-year-old janitor working for the university, murdered 20-year-old Elaura Jeanne Jaquette, a CU Boulder student, in the west tower of the auditorium. Morse was charged with first-degree murder a month later in August 1966.
People have told the urban legend of a haunted Macky Auditorium for decades, including claims of organ music playing from the west tower and sightings of a man in a brown suit wandering the auditorium.
“I think these rumors sort of romanticize the theater and the fact that it is aging,” said Amy Anderson, a professional dancer with David Taylor and the Colorado Ballet in the 1980s and 1990s. “It gives the theater a certain mystique with performers and attendees. I can’t say if it is really and truly haunted, but those rumors, frankly, are spread about any theater.”
The Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society led an investigation into these claims using seismographic, electromagnetic field and temperature readings. They concluded their findings to be “nothing unusual,” according to the investigation report.
“Although Macky is a pretty creepy place when you are backstage or have to go underneath the stage to make a crossover, I never felt any paranormal activity or experiences,” Anderson said. She also said she never experienced anything unusual in the auditorium.
Ana Claire, another of David Taylor’s dancers at the time, agreed.
“I never had a strange experience there, [but] I do believe someone died in a practice room,” she said.
Others have acknowledged the creepy history and energy surrounding the auditorium and compared it to another one of Boulder’s supposedly haunted locations.
“I have experienced a weird vibe down in the basement, very similar to an experience my wife and I had in room 505 in the Hotel Boulderado. It was a feeling of some sort-of presence hovering over us,” said John E. Drumheller, a teaching professor of composition and music technology at CU Boulder.
However, Drumheller said he disagreed with the rumors surrounding the auditorium’s haunting, despite its creepy demeanor.
“I do feel that certain spaces can have their own atmosphere…because Macky is kind of scary looking, and there was a grisly murder back in the ‘60s, it is inevitable that these kinds of rumors will occur,” he said.
Tourism websites, such as Travel Boulder, contribute to such rumors by listing the Auditorium as one of the “most haunted” places in Boulder.
Banjo Billy’s Bus Tour, a guided tour of supposedly haunted Boulder locations, also features Macky on its list of stops.
As for current CU Boulder students, many seem to be unaware of the legends surrounding the auditorium.
CU Boulder student Ken Olson said he had “never heard about [the rumors] before,” despite taking classes in the auditorium.
Regardless, CU Boulder and Boulder communities continue to honor Jaquette with a plaque in the university’s Norlin Quadrangle, dedicated to her life and memory. It is inscribed with a quote by poet Theodore Roethke, reading, “It is neither spring nor summer. It is always.”
Contact staff writer Greta Kerkhoff at Greta.Kerkhoff@colorado.edu.
