Gadsden High School - Anthony, New Mexico

Gadsden High School in Anthony, New Mexico brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “school spirit.” The Old English building located at the front of the school seems to house not just one or even two ghosts, but four. 

All deaths of children are tragic, but the torture of the ghostly child who still haunts the High School is the stuff of parental nightmares. Many years ago, during a school dance, a young female student named Ana was supposedly forced into the building’s basement by two males, where she was raped and murdered. Another story says that Ana committed suicide in a second floor classroom. Whichever horrible end Ana came to, she is seen now as a white apparition. Ana walks through the school’s halls from one end of the building to the other, walking straight through walls. Students and staff have claimed to either see her or hear her, and some have even witnessed her trek as they were standing outside of the school building, looking in.

A student saw her recently while waiting for the after school buses to leave. She and a friend were looking up at the very last classroom on the north side of the second story when they saw a girl in white looking out the window. Behind her the building was dark, but the girl seemed to be luminescent. Ana seems to concentrate her wanderings to this location of the building.

One employee who used to work in the library claimed that there is a yearbook where you can actually see Ana’s apparition. It seems the boy’s basketball team had an extra member in their team photo. Standing at the steps of the Old English building behind the team is Ana.

Another haunting is that of an Hispanic janitor who was accidentally locked in the basement under the boy’s gym next to the Old English building over winter break supposedly sometime in the late 1970’s or early 80’s. In late December, stand by the railing next to the concession stand. You will hear him pounding on the metal door and calling out “Ayuda me!” forever pleading for help. The janitor is said to be joined by a boy ghost who also died needlessly in the basement. He broke in on a dare, got lost, and did not make it out alive.

The girls’ gym is said to have a spirit that turns the showers off and on as well as the lights. 

Many students say not to ask the teachers about those who haunt the hallways of Gadsden high School, but go to the custodians. It seems they are not nearly as sketchy about what they have seen roaming the halls, bathrooms, and basements of this tragic school.